Covet Thy Neighbour
by Ghost-of-Bee
Summary: There are lots of ways to introduce oneself to a new neighbour, but breaking into their flat, perhaps, is a road less travelled.
1. Bibbity Boppity Booze

**Author's Note:** We're not sorry for coming for Domino's Pizza the way we have. They deserve it.

 **Chapter 1: Bibbity Bobbity Booze**

She's heard it told that bad things come in threes, but most proverbs are garbage.

Bad things come in droves. They come in spades. Lily feels foolish for having believed, once, that her terrible luck had its own limitations in place, when the clear reality is that it's quite happy to smash headlong into every individual area of her life with a cruel disinterest in her emotional stability, like an angry bull running rampage through a feng shui exhibit.

Career? What career?

Friends and family? Laughable. Sev and Petunia have seen to that.

Money? She's been biking all over London on the rusting death contraption she salvaged from her parents' garden shed—scared out of her wits that she'll be flattened by a bus and learning to her detriment that nothing unites a road full of drivers like their utter disdain for cyclists—in an attempt to save on public transport. Her financial stability lingers almost permanently at a point between 'not so good' and a full-blown panic attack in the dead of night.

Health? Well, the cycling is keeping her in pretty good shape, so if she can find a way to afford three square meals a day and overcome the crippling sleeplessness that comes with the utter disintegration of one's entire life, she'll be doing alright.

The evidence is there, laid out before her like a tidy row of soldiers. Misfortune is her home now. That's where she resides.

She shouldn't have expected her love life to be any different.

* * *

She deletes her Tinder _as_ she leaves the bar because that date was a fresh hell she does not intend to repeat again, and undertakes the twenty-minute walk—in _heels—_ to another bar in Holloway, where a sympathetic Kingsley pours a generous helping of white rum directly down her throat without bothering to add the pineapple juice or coconut cream afterwards.

"He made the porn joke," she tells him, and pops an olive into her mouth. "Complete non-starter."

"Bastard," says Kingsley, with a noise of disgust for good measure, and orders a bottle of white. His treat.

Lily doesn't even like olives, but she's hungry and they're readily available, and people, apparently, don't do first dates in restaurants anymore. They meet in bars and shag like lithe, disciplined drones, determined that romance be time and cost-effective. All this she has learned over the past year; not that _she's_ been doing any shagging. The men she's met have been less than optimal, and Sev—her supposed caring friend—was scaring off the ones she actually liked for far longer than it took her to notice.

The latest—Will, 27, business consultant, dog person, loves family, rock-climber, travel and adventure enthusiast—immediately recognized her 'from somewhere,' which happens often enough in the city, but, "I must have seen you in a porno," followed by various excitable hints at the wild night of sex he'd somehow convinced himself was coming, will never be an appropriate response to hearing what she does for a living.

'Actress' is not synonymous with 'sex worker,' though she repeatedly finds herself staggered by the amount of men who disagree.

If she can even call herself an actress now, that is. She hasn't booked a proper job in a couple of months, and is picking up more shifts than ever at the restaurant as a result.

There's an out, she knows, if she wants it. Dorcas often calls to remind her, and it takes all the self-control she possesses to ignore her agent's repeated pleas to model 'one more time.'

She feels sort of guilty about that. There are so many girls who want to break into modeling, while Lily seems to be sought out for jobs without much effort on her part, but she despises it with a passion she didn't think possible. She wanted to act so she could embody people, and problems, and say something about the human condition, because it means something to her and because it makes her feel joyful. Modeling feels like fraud, like selling an aspiration that she can't possibly achieve for herself. It's all smoke and mirrors, a deceitful wipe of her many imperfections, and she can't bear the idea that a girl, any girl, even _one_ girl, might look at her picture and feel like she's lacking, because Lily is a mess who doesn't deserve the envy, and she's always hated liars.

She might look hot-as-hell in a bright blue midi, or a gold sequined one-piece with a split down to the navel, but not as good as those shiny, airbrushed photos make it seem.

Plus, Primark was her go-to place for cheap clothes, and now she can't shop there anymore, lest she be bombarded with herself, photoshopped to the nines and vaguely unfamiliar, from every conceivable angle.

She chooses the restaurant instead, has a nice, flexible job at an Italian place in Angel that lets her hang on to her principles, but she hates every minute, and will inevitably give in to Dorcas soon. Her wretched elder sister—poised on the brink of marriage to a chronically repulsive, yet comfortably moneyed man—is already operating at such a high level of smugness that Lily might actually smother her with a tablecloth swatch before she makes it down the aisle.

"My sister the _waitress,"_ Petunia had declared, at her bridal shower last weekend, prompted by Lily's appearance in the living room with tray of mini quiches in hand. "It's such a _shame_ that you never made it to uni."

Petunia lives to apply a particular sort of wording to her thinly-disguised jabs, taking such pleasure in inferring that Lily couldn't get in to uni, when getting in was never the issue. She has heaps of brains. Heaps. She could have had her pick of the litter. It was her common sense that fled her when she decided—dewy-eyed, optimistic teenager that she was—to become an actress instead.

It was a bloody idiotic decision, in hindsight.

She stays out with Kingsley until much, much later than she'd like, and naughtily takes a taxi back to Crouch End—she supposes she can justify the expense when the alternative is being assaulted as she walks home in the dark—and the flat she's shared with Mary for approximately six hectic days.

She's had rather a lot to drink, but she really feels fine. Pretty damn good, in fact. Unusual, considering how much of her life could quite reasonably be described as codswallop.

Perhaps she may have come back home earlier and avoided the second bottle of chardonnay, had Mary not been entertaining a mysterious male visitor in a post-breakup dating spree, and had Lily felt comfortable enough in her new digs to physically inhabit the space without feeling like she was intruding on her friend's privacy. She only moved in because living in the flat she'd shared with Severus had become detrimental, to her sanity and safety both. It just so happened that the lease Mary shared with her cheating ex-boyfriend had come to an end, and so she insisted, with a most-convincing vehemence, that Lily take his place.

Mary's flat is a modern, two-bedroom, shiny-plated affair in a nice, secure complex, because Mary has a practical, well-paying job and a family of means, and while Lily's stuck on her lease with Sev for another two months, she hasn't got much choice but to let her friend cover some of her half of the rent, but she doesn't intend for it to stay that way. She's not a charity case. She's not a scrounger. She's given herself a month to find appropriate work, and if she fails—which she will, come on, she hasn't exactly been lucky lately—it's back to bikinis and perfume ads for her.

Lily has stepped off the lift on the third floor and is scrabbling fruitlessly in her handbag for keys when she sees that the door to her flat is ajar.

Strange, she thinks, and there's a mild, fuzzy sense of awareness in the back of her mind—Mary might at this moment be getting accosted by a murderer, or a burglar, or a door-to-door salesman, so it might be prudent to worry—but Mary texted her twenty minutes ago and seemed perfectly happy, and Lily also really needs to pee, which is the conundrum that chiefly occupies her thoughts, so she pushes her way inside.

All looks well in the dark, narrow, white-walled hallway. She can hear the sound of the television coming from behind the closed door of the living room.

This is fine, she thinks, and heads to the bathroom, almost tripping over a dark red rug that wasn't there this morning. This is all fine, like that little cartoon dog in the burning house. Mary is probably not being murdered. Mary is obviously watching television and buying new rugs for the flat, which she will place in strategic locations in order to trip her unsuspecting housemate. Lily is only a _little_ bit squiffy. The bathroom also looks normal; bright-white and sparkling, completely devoid of blood-splattered tiles. There are no corpses in the bathtub, staring at the ceiling with blind, lifeless eyes. No floating turds in the porcelain loo. This is all entirely fine.

Once she's divested her bladder of its contents, whizzing it away with a loud and satisfying flush, the prospect of a shower seems irresistible, because she'd quite like to scrub the memory of that awful date away from her skin, but also because there are new towels—soft and fluffy and warm—hanging on the dryer rail. Mary's really treating her today.

She tosses her handbag on the floor, turns on the water, pulls her blouse over her head and is waging war on the uncooperative zipper of her jeans, feeling like a fool because she's _just_ had a wee and had no reason to zip them back up again, when the bathroom door opens behind her back.

"Occupado, m'sorry, I just need a shower but don't let me ruin your sex, okay?" she says, and finally, _finally,_ yanks down the zip. Ah, sweet release. She spins around, with a little bit of a wobble, to greet her friend, who has no doubt come to check on her. "I'll go to bed right aft—you're not Mary."

She's right. Her eyes are not deceiving her, though she does, strangely, feel as if her head is full of sticky treacle. Unless Mary has morphed into a tall, dark, bespectacled man, with lips so perfectly formed that it seems entirely unfair that kissing a stranger is frowned upon, Tarzan-like forearms and the wildest, blackest hair she's ever seen—an incredibly-bloody-sexy man, in short, and hopefully not a murderer, or Lily might actually weep for humanity as she's being brutally hacked to pieces—this person is absolutely _not_ her housemate.

* * *

When the authorities come to interrogate James about this incident—which, he's already quite certain, they are bloody well guaranteed to do—he will be able to tell them honestly that, regardless of whatever sordid-seeming research they may uncover, he is nonetheless truly only a victim of implausibly remarkable circumstances here.

The familiarly gorgeous, thoroughly drunk, half-naked woman teetering about his bathroom—now his bedroom—had arrived there of her own accord.

And—as with most things in James's life—the trouble can all be traced back to Sirius.

"Twenty-seven minutes, thirty-six seconds," the blighter had gleefully been counting, watching his phone with the sort of vengeful concentration a cartoon villain might afford a dodgy timer ticking down the seconds until his clumsily compiled dynamite would blow up the old county bank.

Sirius is, in fact, just attempting to finagle his way into a free pizza. But his enthusiasm for the cause seems much the same.

"I am hungry," James reminds his mate irritably, and not for the first time in these intervening twenty-seven minutes. They're sprawled out on the living room sofa, watching that episode of _Crime Scene_ with the actress James fancies for the nine-hundredth time. But not even her startled gasp as the murderer lurks and she begins to dodge fetchingly between alleys can assuage James's impending dread about this familiar tableau. It is brewing in time with his empty stomach. He's bloody starved. "It's eighteen quid. You piss out eighteen quid worth of Nespresso before lunch every day. Can't we keep some perspective?"

"There is no perspective when _principle_ is at stake," Sirius insists, eyes still fixated on the clock. "I've caughtthem out this time. Thirty minutes or less, my arse. I respect the laws of the free market. This is the deal they've stuck."

"To be bullied and badgered by a madman with a cell phone stopwatch?" James kicks his socked feet up on the coffee table. "Best brush up on those economic terminologies, Adam Smith. Free market that is not."

Unsurprisingly, Sirius ignores this.

"I'm beginning a revolution," he declares instead. "One valiant fellow calling out injustice."

"Like Robespierre," James returns flatly, knowing full well the only likely injustice that will result from all this is Pronto Pies refusing to deliver to them anymore—just like Pizza Pazza and Firezza Pizzeria before them. Sirius has managed to scare off every take-away service with a delivery promise in a ten-kilometer radius. If this keeps up, soon they may be forced to do something utterly preposterous, like cook for themselves.

Or—James shudders—Domino's.

He does not want to think about a life reduced to _Domino's_.

However, two minutes later, when the flat buzzer blares in time with Sirius's mobile timer, and the git lets out a warrior's cry, James says a silent farewell to Pronto Pies and resigns himself to a lifetime of overpriced garbage slices and stale bread sticks.

Life is cruel sometimes.

"Got them! _Got them—"_ Sirius hurdles the coffee table, knocking over a stack of unopened mail, and skittering out of the room.

"Keys!" James shouts, because he is most certainly not letting Sirius back into the flat if he doesn't have a fully intact pizza in tow, which has not occurred the past two times he went down to row with a pizza boy.

Instead, there's a cringing _clack_ as the door rebounds against the frame, telling James that his mate opted out of keys in lieu of throwing on the dead bolt, and thus their flat door is likely swinging open for all to enjoy.

Ah, well. If they're robbed, Sirius is paying for it.

James settles back into the sofa and hits rewind. He's missed the actress stumbling upon the murderer, and that's his very favorite bit. She dies so _well._

The faint creak of the front door opening comes far sooner than James would have expected. This is a record. Either the pizza boy had pegged Sirius for a belligerent pill mighty quickly, giving in preemptively, or the lunatic is trying some new kind of avoidance tactic. There really is no telling. James waits, but hears no subsequent exclamation of fury or victory to give hint about the outcome.

There is, however, also no smell of delicious pizza filtering through the flat.

James's stomach gurgles in anguish.

He mutes the telly.

"Mate?" The living room door is still closed, but the flat walls are paper thin. The fact that Sirius is ignoring him does not bode well.

Was that the toilet flushing?

And…the shower?

James lunges to his feet. If Sirius is drowning the pizza in some kind of riotous reaction to Pronto's refusal to honour his thirty-minute mutiny, James is going to murder him even more thoroughly than the bloke on _Crime Scene_ had just done to his much fitter victim. With his nine hundred viewings, James has become a bit of an expert on murder now. And hangry doesn't even begin to describe him. They say crimes of passion are common.

He storms toward the bathroom.

"Wanker," he calls, voice carrying. He reaches the closed bathroom door, grabs the knob, and throws it open. "I want my—"

And that's when the trouble starts.

* * *

"You—" he says, looking even more surprised than she feels. _"You._ I—what?"

His reaction seems to suggest that Lily ought to explain the situation, the situation being that she—just a small-town girl, living in a lonely world— _could_ be taking a midnight shower going anywhere right now were it not for this city boy's rude interruption.

What's ruder than rude is that he's acting shocked at all. What cheek, honestly. She would _never_ barge into his flat, potentially murder his housemate—there's a distinct lack of blood on his person but there's more than one way to skin a cat, or murder a woman, Lily knows, because she's _played_ a murder victim in a BBC procedural and her character was savagely garrotted—then demand an explanation for his presence.

"Is this a murder?" she asks him, quite impressed by his own calm in the face of possible death. He really doesn't look like the type, though she vaguely remembers reading that attractive men make better killers for their innate ability to win trust with their pretty faces—but she's far too tired to go into all of that now. "Are you doing a murder in my flat?"

"Doing a murder?" He repeats the words slowly, near incredulously. His eyes are wide behind his specs, but he can't seem to settle them in any one place. "You've invaded mine! The invader does the murder. You're...is this a trick? Has Sirius paid you? I…" He gives a desperate sounding huff of breath. "Please put your shirt back on. I don't know where I'm meant to look."

"What do you mean?" she starts, and looks down at her chest. Her blouse is gone, but luckily, she's wearing her very favourite purple bra with the fancy lace. Who took off her blouse? It must have been her. "What's wrong with it? It's my Little Mermaid bra."

Now his eyes are most definitely on the ceiling. "I've already been accused of being a murderer today. I'd rather not be maligned a pervert too."

"I _asked_ you if you were a murderer, actually. There were no accusations. You're very oversensitive."

"Yes, well, high crimes do tend to kick up my sense of panic." His eyes flicker down for only a second, and he lets out a strangled noise. "And please notice you haven't put your shirt back on yet. I want that entered in the record. Whatever record there is."

"Hang on," she instructs him, and holds up a hand to silence him. She can't comprehend him at all. "Firstly, you're the one wandering around my flat, so I'm the one who _should_ be panicking, and secondly, I don't—I can't shower with my shirt on."

"You're showering _here?"_

"Where else would I shower, Norman Bates? The motel?"

"Can we please not regress back to murderer? You're very fixated and I am apparently overly sensitive."

The inside of her head feels so _thick,_ like the treacle of earlier has mated with quicksand, birthing some bastard-child sludge that is slowly squeezing the air from her brain. It's hot in this very-white room, even with her shirt off.

All she wants is a shower, but it seems she has to decipher this strange, handsome home-invader's nonsense first.

"If you're not a murderer…" she begins, regarding him with lowered brows, but then some lost knowledge from earlier clunks into place in her brain like a shifting gear, and she darts forward to grab his arm, teetering a little as she does, but she's sure it's completely unnoticeable. "Fuck me, are you Mary's _date?"_

Of the guys her friend has dated, Lily's never found a single one attractive, much as Mary might insist that Benjy or Florian or Eddie—she thinks this one is an Eddie—are irresistible sexpots, one and all. She likes unusual-looking blokes, with shaved heads or unkempt ginger beards, ears that stick out like kettle-spouts, or all three on occasion. If _this_ guy is Mary's first foray into the world of genuine, undeniable handsomeness, it's an act of deliberate cruelty, because he looks like Lily had him custom-made in a Hot Man factory for her own pleasure.

"Date? Mary who?" He seems to be staring fixedly at where her fingers touch his arm. Then he shakes his head a bit. "Wait. Next door Mary?"

"Well, I dunno if I'd call her bedroom _next door,_ as such," Lily muses, and drops her hand from his arm. "Caddy adjacent, maybe. But all the same, can you hop-to back in there, please, so I can bathe?" She points to her own chest, though she hardly needs to, because she's _seen_ his eyes flick down there several times, and why shouldn't they? There's a reason why she's been asked to participate in so many swimsuit shoots. There's a reason why the advertising execs at Primark have made such ample use of her cleavage. "If she comes in right now, she's going to think that I'm trying to seduce you."

" _Trying_ might denote some kind of failure, and at the risk of getting repetitive, I still can't manage to get you clothed. Or to speak much sense, for that matter." His long, tanned fingers stream tiredly down his face, as if _she's_ the one being difficult. "Why would next door Mary..." But the words sputter to a sudden halt, and he seems to jerk in some realization. The hand drops down to his side. Abruptly, he leans closer, though they're already standing quite close. _Too_ close? "You _do_ know...Christ. Do you think we're in Mary's flat?"

"It's Mary's _and_ mine, excuse me."

"No," he says. "It is not."

"Yes," she says, and points to the open door behind him, through which she can see part of the living room on the other side of the hall, faintly outlined in the glow of the television. "It _is._ That, right there, is _my_ couch."

"It's an IKEA couch. It is literally _everyone's_ couch."

 _"Everyone_ can't fit on one couch, you idiot. Are you drunk or something?"

"Am _I_ —" He laughs, snorts, then catches himself. "You _do_ realize that swimming look to things and the way they're likely teetering about isn't because we've entered a dream sequence, yeah?"

"If this was a dream sequence," she begins loftily, but is forced to pause for a moment, because if he _is_ Mary's date… but mustering up a lie seems like complicated long division; not overly difficult if one were to try, but Lily can't really be bothered at this juncture. "We—you and I both know that you'd be a lot more naked right now, so don't start getting clever with me."

He's full-on gaping at her now, and this is ridiculous.

This is _her_ flat, and all she wants is one bleeding shower, and she has done _Shakespeare,_ for crying out loud. She deserves more respect than this.

"Where's Mary?" she says. "I need to disapprove of you to her face."

Hah. That'll show him. Stupid, sexy burglar. Murderer. Mary's date. Whatever he happens to be.

She'd _really_ rather he wasn't her housemate's date—though the alternative reality is somewhat questionable, but he hasn't brought out a deadly weapon yet. The last thing she wants is to spend tomorrow morning gazing longingly at him over her cereal while he and Mary engage in an awkward, post-shag ritual of uncomfortable, self-conscious cheek kisses and unenthusiastic declarations of, "we should do this again," that neither of them will ever see through, at which point he'll dart out through the front door and Lily will have to admit to her friend that she's madly in love with him.

Or—alright, not _love,_ but Lily would neverbring a specimen like that home with her, only to waste him with one night of regrettable passion. Unless he turned out to be a closeted UKIP supporter, or something. She's not _that_ desperate for romance.

"Yes, by all means, let's find Mary. Next door. Where she lives." Then, beneath his breath he grumbles, "Tells me we ought to be naked, but _I'm_ the one getting clever?"

Maybe, she thinks, cocking her head to the side—only to hastily right herself because _damn_ , does that make her feel dizzy—this is some sort of prank, Mary's terrible idea of a fun puzzle to welcome Lily to the building, and the one clue to crack it all is the fact that he looks _nothing_ like her best friend's usual type.

"You know what?" she says coolly.

"You want me to guess?" he replies.

"You and Mary think you're _so_ funny, but you're not funny," she confidently concludes. "You are _hazing_ me, and I'm feeling really disrespected right now."

With that undoubtedly cutting and fabulously witty comment, she draws herself up to her fullest height and tries to push past him, but she finds herself stumbling, her heel sliding against the tiled floor, so he's forced to catch her in his arms to keep her from colliding with his chest.

"You think this is— _oof."_ He steadies her against him, his hands bobbling around as if he's not quite certain where they should go, what they should do. "Sorry—if you'll just—yes. Two feet. Look, you've got this all wrong. There is no hazing. And I know I've been trying to get your clothes back _on_ , but you're going to crack an ankle attempting to storm about on those heels, so maybe just...?"

Her gaze floats to the door behind him. If she makes a run for it now, she can burst in on Mary in her bedroom, where she is no doubt shaking with suppressed laughter, and give her a piece of her mind.

"Fine, then," she agrees, and puts one hand on his shoulder to hold herself steady. She lifts one foot behind her back and pulls off her heel with her free hand, pulling him towards her for support, her chest pushed fully up against his, like the strangest hug she's ever experienced. "But I'm my _own_ woman and I'm doing this because I want to, not because you told me."

He smells really good, like sandalwood, and man—pure, raw, flesh and blood _man_ with man parts and really strong arms—and she hasn't had sex in such a _long_ time, and feels vaguely resentful towards him for reminding her of that now, especially since some terribly cruel deity with a spite against Lily saw fit to let Mary see this one first.

She ignores it, and works off the other shoe.

"I must away," she tells him grandly, once both shoes are off and in her hands, and moves to the door, ignoring the look of deep confusion on his face. Her handbag and her blouse are still on the floor. "Farewell."

As soon as she's out in the hall, she takes her shot, sprinting to the bedroom like a deer—he calls out something behind her but it's far too late, he can't warn Mary now—throwing one of her shoes behind her like she's playing _Mario Kart_ and her favorite silver stilettos are a slippery banana peel, and throws the door open with dramatic aplomb.

"Got you!" she cries in triumph… to an empty room.

Or, not _empty,_ exactly—there's a massive ginger cat stretched out across the bed—but completely devoid of her best friend's possessions.

All of a sudden, the whole damn mess becomes quite clear.

Lily might, perhaps, in spite of earlier convictions, _definitely_ be plastered.

That second bottle of wine was undoubtedly unwise, as were the cocktails that came after it.

And this isn't Mary's flat.

If she was feeling gracious, or sober, were her pride not grievously wounded, nor her better judgement missing in action (likely abandoned on that bathroom floor), she might admit to her wrongs and slink back home in embarrassment, rather than stick it out and argue for the sheer sake of arguing.

But Lily isn't any of those things.

* * *

It is somewhere around the time that James is watching her sprint—still half-clothed, cackling, like a red-haired sprite come to life—into his bedroom, and is only partially able to dodge the shoe—the _shoe_ —she's flung back at him like a soldier tossing grenades behind enemy lines, that he fully comes to realise he has officially lost all control of this situation.

Not, he will freely admit, that he ever had much control to begin with. But reason argues that basic sobriety ought have been enough to tip the scales in his favour at least a smidge.

Ought have.

Funny things, ought haves.

He shuts off the still-flowing shower, grabs her silky wisp of a blouse from the bathroom floor, and kicks the shoe that nearly maimed him in the direction of his bedroom, still not entirely certain this isn't a dream, or a prank, or some kind of elaborate mental break. Each one of those things, James decides, is distinctly more probable than the actual reality he's found himself in now.

A woman has broken into his flat.

A woman has broken into his flat, and is vehemently claiming it is _her_ flat.

Said woman, you see, is terribly smashed.

Said woman, also, does not seem to realise she is terribly smashed, nor is she particularly receptive to observations making note of that.

She is not, either, terribly receptive to clothing.

And finally—most spectacularly—said drunk, ornery, shirt-adverse woman is not exactly a stranger to James. She is, in fact, eerily familiar, though they have never once met in their lives. He has not told her this, and likely never will, as she already sort of thinks he's a murderer.

She's funny, his housebreaker.

Distractingly gorgeous too, even more so than he'd expected.

She's flirted with him nearly as much as she's insulted him, and his insides are twisted round because of it.

Also—has he mentioned her state of undress?

Moreover, it is very, very possible—if he's managed to sort out her nonsensical rambling correctly—that she has moved into the flat next door, in the vacancy left by Next Door Mary's dodgy boyfriend, Squawks-Like-A-Killed-Animal-When-He-Comes Todd.

And isn't _that_ just the damnedest thing?

James is not quite sure what to do about any of this. Cataloguing it all as such is not particularly helpful, though it's nearly all he can do at the moment to remain upright and moving forward. He's desperately grappling to keep his life, his dignity, and, maybe, hopefully, even some semblance of decorum, as a woman he's for many weeks had dreams about lunges into his bedroom with a resounding, "Got you!"

The joke is on her, of course. She isn't in her flat. Mary's flat. Whosever. They are most certainly in _James's_ flat—James's _bedroom_ —and James wonders how long that will take her to register.

It likely doesn't matter. This one's cheeky, clever, and far too quick of the lip for someone who can't even manage to properly keep to her feet. She'll turn it all around on him, he's sure, as she's managed to do every little thing he's said and done since he first stumbled upon her in the bathroom. In a matter of moments, her housebreaking will be his fault, and she'll somehow have him apologising for it. Or laughing. Has he mentioned she's funny? And pretty?

A bloke can almost forget she's just attempted to kill him by shoe.

"Who throws shoes?" he laments as he reaches the doorway, sounding, he knows, terribly like his mother. Euphemia only deigns to scold her son on every third Thursday and the occasional religious holiday, but she nonetheless knows her way around a high dudgeon. "You could've taken an eye out!"

She's standing just inside his bedroom now—not Mum. The housebreaker. She! _Her!_ In his _bedroom_ —and though her back is to him, he can see from the tenseness of her shoulders, the sudden stiffness in her long limbs, that she's finally caught on that she _may_ not be in the right here.

As predicted, that seems virtually irrelevant at this time.

"Well," she eventually declares, nonchalant as you like. "Clearly, she's redecorated the entire room in the past few hours."

James will not laugh. He blatantly _refuses_ to laugh. He will not take enjoyment out of her breezy response, the patented obtuse cheek it has only taken something like ten minutes to get to know. It is far wiser to cling to indignation instead.

"That's what you're going with?" he asks, arms all akimbo, only a _touch_ of humour escaping. "When conspiracy fails, mass redecoration?"

"I might as well. Though I must say, her sense of style has completely failed her. The only good addition is the cat."

She motions to Algernon, who is lounging atop James's bed, watching this scene play out with his usual aplomb, but James reckons there's a secret gleam in the cat's eye just for him that says, _Well, I am interested to see how you bungle this now._

Algernon is a wit and a hoot. It is no wonder even an objectively intoxicated woman can immediately notice his brilliance. That is not rocket science, it's very nearly common sense. Her proper acknowledgment of this will not delight him.

(He is getting quite good at lying to himself.)

"If you think you can make this better with praise of my cat, you are only partially correct," James sniffs, matching her easy haughtiness with some prim hauteur of his own. "Invade my flat and now insult my decor? The whole lot came straight from the Pottery Barn catalogue, I'll have you know. Well—mostly. That bit there may have been picked up at a tag sale. But the seller said it was in prime condition. And it only collapsed the once."

She does not seem overly impressed by these explanations.

"Look, Eddie, or whatever your name is—"

"James." It has not occurred to him until now that she doesn't know his name. He knows hers. He _thinks._ Unless she's got a clone running around somewhere, proper _Orphan Black_ stuff. "If we're going to be insulting each other so thoroughly, it may as well be by name."

"—if you and Mary aren't—wait." She pirouettes around to eye him with great interest. "Is your name _really_ James?"

She sounds so surprised—with that intrigued sort of gleam her very green eyes are flicking his way—that James is momentarily nonplussed. "Er. Should it not be?"

 _"That,"_ she says emphatically, and points towards his chest. She's teetering rather dangerously, for having taken off her skyscraping heels, has taken to standing on her tiptoes to compensate for the loss of height. He is quite prepared to have to lunge to steady her at any moment. "That is my _all-time_ most favourite name in the world. Honestly, it is. You know the bloke with the giant peach? Loved him. Can I pet your cat?"

Bloody hell. She's got a smile on her, this one. Sunny and bright, and can she pet his _cat_. Even if James's very own mother had not spent more nights than not during his misbegotten youth reading and rereading _James and the Giant Peach_ to him, James reckons he'd still be turned all to mush now. He doesn't know how to handle her being friendly. At least the drunk and prickly persona can be somewhat withstood. But when she looks at him like that—like he's just done the _best_ , most _darling_ thing, simply to please her—he is effectively putty in her hands.

As such, he probably should let her know now that Algernon has only ever met approximately three people on this entire green earth who he has deemed acceptable enough to cuddle with him, and one of those people is Remus, who Algernon spent most of uni alternatively perching along in study sessions with one minute, only to claw holes into every sock Remus ever owned or merely thought to own at the next.

James does not want to dim that sunny smile of hers. It's best she's warned straight off.

"I would offer blanket permission to those who respect Dahl's best heroes," he starts, taking a few steps closer, "but Algernon—the cat—he's rather got a mind of his—" Oh fucking hell. "Oh—well. There you go, anyway. Right. Watch—"

She's on his bed now.

She's _on his bed now_.

"Of _course_ you have a mind of your own," she's cooing, snuggling Algernon—who is... _what?_ Somehow instantly receptive to her charms, the little bugger—to her semi-exposed chest. "You're _ginger._ _I'm_ ginger. You're clever, I'm clever." She treats James to a maddeningly smug smile. "You were saying?"

James can't recall what he was saying. He can't recall anything at all, because Algernon— _Algernon_ —has cuddled up to her now—onto the silky skin James had only gotten brief touches of before, as she'd stumbled against him when attempting to storm out the bathroom. Warm. Soft. Strokes of velvet against his fingertips, which had skittered along everywhere, not sure what was allowable, what would get him smacked (it should all get him smacked. He's a proper letcher), but wanting above all else not to see her fall on her face or blemish her lovely person with her drunken clumsiness. The same person that wasn't protected at all by that purple bit of nothing she calls a bra (no matter which Disney princess inspired it), nor by the coyly unpopped button of her jeans (has he not yet mentioned the coyly unpopped button of her jeans?). James has seen maybe more times than he'd like what Algernon can do to skin that soft, that pliable, when he's been disturbed in his comfort bubble. Cat scratches are slight but brutal wounds when applied just so. (And Algernon, of course, knows how to apply them _just so._ )

That he's not lashing out now—that he has in fact even just _purred contently_ —only makes sense in the universe where this woman had found herself in James's flat in the first place.

"I...you know, never mind. I've given up." Better men than him have lost harder battles than this. He scuttles toward the bed in defeat. "But look, here's your shirt again. Maybe we just...don't give a bloke ideas and toss it back on now, yeah?"

"Not now," she says, waving her blouse away, her attentions entirely captured by Algernon, who looks as if he's on the receiving end of the petting of his life. "You. Are. Just. _Beautiful,_ aren't you? Such a fluffy little gent, yes you are! I _love_ cats. Even cats with murderous owners. It's not your fault, you know? It's not your fault, you poor, darling thing."

Ah, so back to being a murderer now, is he? There's some relief in that. "Even murderous owners deserve some common decency from time to time," he tries, and thrusts the shirt back at her again. "I admit I'm feeling quite ganged up against at present. Can you just—no, not further _in_ the bed. Out. _Out_ the bed. _In_ the shirt."

"What's your obsession with me putting my shirt on? Do I have horrible breasts or something?"

Oh, yes, he's _definitely_ going to answer that one. "Fishing for compliments, are you?"

"If you didn't want me to ask, you shouldn't keep looking at them."

"If you didn't want me looking at them, you should have put your shirt on."

"Maybe, _James,_ one might consider that my bra is living a very sad life _not_ being looked at, when in actual fact I spent a lot of money on this bra and only I ever see it." She ceases her stroking of Algernon's fur to land her hands clumsily on her hips, pushing her shoulders back as if she's daring him to get an eyeful. "Maybe you're not doing my bra's self-confidence any good right now."

James is going to ignore the thrill that sets off in his stomach at the intriguing admission that _he_ , in fact, is apparently one of the few viewers of this said sad bra. It does not look all that sad to him. In fact, with her chest puffed out like that, it looks... _well._ Never mind. She thinks he's a murderer. Or she's quite fine joking about it. Either way, she's drunk and blathering and no doubt means that as a proposition as much as she means anything she's saying right now—that is, not at all. He just really needs to get her clothes back on. "Well, I've already got my hands full attempting to keep your bra's owner on her feet, so—"

"Sick of being on my feet. Been walking all day in those bloody heels. Compassionate you are not."

"And is _compassion_ what was at play when you nearly punctured me with those same bloody heels earlier?"

"You're a person, not a bicycle tyre," she wearily sighs, then wraps her arms around the cat and collapses backwards on the bed, her head connecting with his pillow. "I should know, I've got a bike—but this bed is super comfortable, you know. You should really try sleeping in it sometime."

He will never sleep in this bed again. The image of her there, cat cuddled close, red hair spread across his pillow, in the terribly lonely bra, will keep him up every night from now until kingdom come. "I generally make the attempt at least once a night," he somehow manages to get out. "Typically it's just me and Algernon, however, and if you're angling for an invitation, best leave that sort of decision making until tomorrow."

"I make attempts, too." Another tired sigh. "But it's hard to sleep when you're deeply miserable."

 _Deeply miserable?_ The term immediately catches him. More, even so, the little, resigned way she says it. James pauses in his attempts to foist her shirt on her, hesitates for a lingering moment. This is not the tale of the sad and lonely bra. For the first time all evening, James is actually a bit startled by her. _Concerned_ by her. She's frowning, and there's this notch that settles just between her drawn brows that furrows into shallow grooves.

He does not want her to be deeply miserable.

He wonders _why_ she's deeply miserable.

It isn't his place to ask. She doesn't know him, doesn't know what she's saying, either. Or, she _does_ , likely, but she won't mean to have said it come morning. James doesn't want that. It's not fair to press. It's better he just makes the rest of this evening as _un_ -deeply _un-_ miserable as possible, for both of their sakes.

But he does really wish she wasn't deeply miserable.

"I suppose you want your bed back now?"

This time, it's his turn to let out the hefty sigh. "If we're going by my wants and preferences...hard to believe, but shirt before bed, please."

"Alright, Mum. Go on, then."

James admits to some delight to see the cheek is back. Though he is not quite sure what to do with the order. "Can't say I ever thought I'd be trying to _re_ -robe a gorgeous girl in my bed, but that's what this evening has come to, has it? Alright. But you need to quit clutching Algernon if you want to make a proper go of this."

She laughs to herself, releases the cat from her arms and hoists herself up to a seated position, shifting so that her legs dangle off the edge of the bed.

"I think I love your cat, James," she admits, gazing up at him with wide-eyed innocence. "He _gets_ me, you know?"

 _She's said love and James in the same sentence._ Lord, now he's sounding drunk. "Must be the ginger thing."

"Gingers are beautiful."

"Well, from one ginger enthusiast to the next...please put your clothes on."

"Since you're being polite," she allows, and rises to her feet, but immediately groans and claps a hand to her forehead. "Okay, no." She sits back down. "Head's all swimmy. You need to do it."

"Need to…" He clears his throat. Fuck. Of course. Right. He can do this. It's fine. He lifts the shirt again. "Alright. Yes. Team effort. This hole is...the head...I think—"

"What are you—ow! That's my _hair!"_

James's hands dart back. "Shit! Sorry! Er...there. All sorted. Your hair is very silky. It slips right out. Just pop your arm through—oh." James blinks. Moves one sleeve this way, then that way. "Shit. Wait. I think it's gone backwards."

 _"You're_ gone backwards, for the love of—earring, earring! Careful!"

"Well, why must they _dangle_ like that?" He swears beneath his breath, wrangling with the earring like Algernon used to battle with string back when he was a kitten, before he got much too cool for such plebeian pastimes. "Quit twisting. I've got this—or— _hey_ , stop yanking it! I'm trying to _help_ —"

Then he feels it—ten times worse for the surprise, surely, but blistering pain all the same, ricocheting up his leg from the place at which she'd just mutinously jabbed him in the shin with her foot. She's _kicked_ him. She's actually _kicked_ him! He lets out an impolite, strangled sound as he keels over in anguish...which leaves his face resting equally as impolite and strangled in what, he thinks, some may call her décolletage.

Fucking hell, she's going to boot him again, isn't she?

But instead he hears, quite collected, quite primly, her melodic voice going, "Oh, hello."

"Oh, hullo," comes the equally quaint response from behind them. And god, lord, _Christ_ , James knows that voice.

And, annoyingly, also now notes the tempting smell of pizza filling the air, too.

Of course.

James lifts his head from her chest slowly.

This is going to take some fancy explaining.

"The pizza guy is here?" She snorts, loudly, and regards James's wincing and now thankfully upturned face with an arched brow. The fact that he's just landed face-first in her cleavage appears to be vastly amusing to her. "What kind of porno did you have planned?"

"The fact that you still seem to think I've planned any of this," he mutters, "is deeply baffling."

"I mean, I'd give _you_ a whirl if pressed, but him, too?" She jerks her head towards Sirius. "Not really my thing. Or my type. No offence, pizza man."

"I'll keep on my pants, then," Sirius replies affably, giving a congenial wave, at near the same time James's head jerks round and he thinks, _what the hell did she just say?_

Maybe he did not, in fact, land embarrassingly and cushioning-y in the warmth of her tempting bosom. Maybe, in fact, she'd kicked him in the shin, he'd wailed like a child, and on his way down, he'd struck his head on the end of the bedside table, and now he's unconscious, passed out cold on his hard bedroom floor, dreaming this all up, because that is what would make the most sense here.

Or maybe she's just drunk, and brazen, and already senses that the easiest way to bring him to his knees (when he is not, you know, there already) is to tease him mercilessly.

She is not wrong.

Give him a _whirl._ Fucking hell.

"I'm looking for Mary," she says to Sirius. "Do you know Mary?"

Looking far too amused, Sirius cocks a thoughtful head. "Next door Mary?"

Ha. Best of luck. James had been through _that_ gag already.

"Oh, _next door_ Mary!" she happily exclaims, suddenly, _inexplicably_. "It all makes sense now! You know, I suspected that she lived next door, but _he_ said otherwise—"

"I?" James is floored. Outraged. " _I_ —?"

"Thanks for telling me, pizza guy." She hops to her feet with a steadiness which has, as of yet, eluded her completely on account of her utter inebriation, yet she seems perfectly able to pull it out of the bag for his housemate. The confounded blouse is appropriately positioned and smoothed down in a matter of seconds. "What toppings did you get?"

Sirius pops open the pizza box. "Sausage and pepperoni. All the phallic sort. _And_ it was free _._ "

"Ah, the over-compensator. Can I have a slice?"

James stumbles to his feet. This is all happening too quickly. When did she get so dexterous? When did this all become neighbourly? How is _he_ the dunderhead, and Sirius—the smirking git—the newly-arrived saviour? For saying the _same bloody thing_ James had fifteen minutes ago? Next door Mary! "Are you kidding?"

She rolls her eyes at him, then flashes a friendly smile at Sirius. "I'm Lily and this is James. Is he your housemate?"

"When I can't convince him to sleep outside with his fellow stray mongrels"—Sirius nods sadly—"unfortunately, yes."

"He doesn't seem to like me very much," she tells him sadly, which is so patently absurd, James nearly chokes out loud. She fishes a slice from the open pizza box, takes a generous bite, wipes her mouth with the side of her wrist and carries on talking, her voice thick from her mouthful of crust, cheese and processed pork products, yet still perfectly discernible. "But can you tell him from me that I think he's real cute? I've got to head off."

 _I think he's real cute._

She did not…

She did _not_ —

 _She is drunk. She is drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk_ —REAL CUTE— _drunk, drunk, drunk..._

She blows a kiss to Algernon and begins to hum to herself as she sallies past Sirius, not even bothering to give James so much as a glance, though he notes she stops off in the loo to scoop her bag off the floor, shuck it over her shoulder, and continue whistling her way out of the flat. She only stumbles over the hallway rug and politely begs its pardon the once.

The front door clicks shut with a resounding _snick_. No one says anything—not James, not Sirius—for a solid fifteen seconds. James is not certain he's capable of words just yet. His mind is far too busy trying to remind himself that she was sloshed, and teasing, and probably won't have time to _really_ notice how fit he is until they're in the stark light of sobering day, if she ever has a care to notice, which she very well may not, what with her occupied being so fit and funny and housebreaking and all that other to-do herself.

It's fine.

He's fine.

 _Right._

"So," Sirius finally says, dragging out the word with mocking pleasure, giving James a _look_ that encompasses every rubbish, ribald thing the blighter might say, a clear buffet open to him, though the myriad options are obviously making it difficult to decide which particular taunting morsel to tuck into first. Instead, his eyes flick back to the now-closed front door. "That was the same…?"

James sighs. "Lily. Evans. Yes, I think."

"Fuck me," Sirius cackles, eyes alight with glee. "And she's…?"

"Moved in next door in place of Ten-Second-Pterodactyl Todd?" James nods grimly. "Apparently so."

"She thinks you don't like her," Sirius says next, and now the cackles are nearly raucous wails, and the half-opened pizza box is tipping to the side. "You. Not like _her_."

"She was also somewhat certain I was a murderer for a bit there," James confesses miserably. "With my luck, that's all she'll hazily recall from her drunken evening—some dodgy tosser with murderous intent who somehow ended up with his head caught against her tits, shoving phallic pizza toppings at her, and all because some _wanker_ "—James glares—"couldn't bother to close the damn flat door!"

"You're welcome," Sirius says, pulling out a slice of pizza and taking a hefty bite.

It's a terribly sad state of affairs that James finds he's not even hungry anymore. His ravenousness has fled with his housebreaker, and she's likely taken a healthy slice of his sanity along too. The prospect is so despairing, so utterly _predictable_ with his rubbish bin luck, that James effectively tunes out Sirius's persisting laughter.

This is likely why—for the second time that evening—he is caught unawares by the flying spiked heel, failing to clap eyes on the hurtling projectile before it's already been lobbed at his head and is halfway sailed to shanking him dead. It's only helpful self-preservation, pure automatic instinct, that sees James swatting it away at the last second, where it lands, clattering noisily, against the hardwood floor.

It's one of Lily's shoes. She must have forgotten it.

"Buck up, Prince Charming," Sirius says, leg still outstretched in the sort of follow-through required for kicking dangerous footwear at one's best mate's head. "Already done better than the last bloke, haven't you? He only managed to keep his Cinderella around till midnight. And here you are, all the way to"—he consults his phone—"half-past, before chasing her off. Well done."

"Bugger off," James grumbles, grabbing the shoe and winding it up behind his head as if to let it fly back whence it came. Sirius darts away from the doorway with another smug cackle, but James doesn't even bother attempting the toss. Instead, he settles the shoe back in his lap, eyeing it with suspicion, with resignation, with...something.

He'll have to get it back to her at some point, he's sure.

Tomorrow, likely. Or perhaps the next day.

Maybe she won't even remember him.

And that would be a relief...wouldn't it?

In the hallway, Sirius's off-key singing floats through the door. _"Salagadoola, don't-know-the-words-a bibbity bobbity boo. Put them together and what have you got—"_

"Bibbity bobbity...bugger," James mutters.


	2. Top Banana

**Chapter 2: Top Banana**

One would _think_ , if one were naive, if one had lived a charmed life, if one were not Lily Evans, that fate, or karma, or whatever mystic force conspired to shape her destiny—the same force that led her down a rabbit hole of binge drinking and directional discombobulation in the first place—might take pity on her poor, unfortunate soul, and allow her to arise on Saturday morning feeling fresh and ready to face the day ahead.

But no, she wakes up wrecked.

And _late._ So late. She's lost most of her morning to a heavy, dry-mouthed slumber and a poorly-mixed cocktail of very strange dreams—auditioning for a play with a totally blank script, unknotting a length of wire with her great aunt Denise, and a sex dream that was appallingly frustrating because it _wasn't_ a sex dream, because she just wanted to _get bloody going_ and _do it_ already, but he kept insisting that she put her clothes back _on—_

Wait.

 _Wait._

That didn't actually happen, did it?

She experiences a fleeting glimpse of heart-stopping fear, like missing a step on the stairs in the dead of night and plummeting to an ungainly stumble—but hastily collects herself.

It can't have. She was with Kingsley—who has seen her in her underwear and less on countless spa trips, sleepovers and weekends away, during less financially barren periods of her life—all evening, and that just… wouldn't happen with Kingsley. There is no scenario, and no universe, in which she'd try to seduce _him,_ of all people. It must have been one of those lucid recollections that _seem_ real, but aren't, like dreaming of a memory of a previous dream. She's experienced that phenomenon before, once realising halfway through a coach journey to Brighton that a collection of startlingly clear memories of a childhood spent palling around with Carey Mulligan were entirely fictitious.

It can't have— _did it,_ though?

No.

But she thinks she might have _—No._

This is getting too much like _Inception_ for a Saturday morning, so Lily abandons her train of thought and sets her spinning-top theories aside, dragging herself out of bed with a lethargy that smacks of no sleep at all, rather than the coma she's just arisen from. She's got work at the restaurant in two hours, and she needs some pep—busy lunch shifts require a Spartan-like dedication to getting the job done with a wink and a smile—but she can't muster up the will to move at a regular human speed. She cannot jog her brain to care about potentially turning up late. She doesn't want to cycle for twenty-five minutes through the chill, sickly drizzle that mists her bedroom window. She doesn't want to spend the day carrying plates of seafood linguine to that one table of vulgar, obnoxious, condescending assholes who will inevitably blot out the memory of every friendly patron who walks through the door that day.

She doesn't want her job.

She doesn't want her life, in its current state.

But elsewhere in the world, there are children starving to death, so she resolves to dial down the macabre despair and get a grip on herself. She will not be bested by a rough patch. She will refrain from throwing further pity parties for herself. Last night was a necessary indulgence in melancholy brought about by the terrible date that threw itself atop the bad luck dogpile, but that's all over now, and she will be cheerful once her body shakes off this hangover and starts to cooperate.

For whatever reason, she slept in her blouse the night before, so she strips and shucks on a dressing gown before she shuffles out to the hall, tripping over her discarded high-heeled shoe as she goes, and feeling rather as if a crawl through heavy treacle might see her moving faster.

However, she wants a shower, so move she must, thinking longingly of the hot stream of revitalising water that awaits her down the hall.

The best room in her new apartment is undoubtedly the loo, where a cavernous bathtub and a luxurious rain shower turn their pristine noses up at the mildewed tiles, dripping hose and never-quite-hot-and-often-quite-arctic water she'd spent an awkward, painful number of years with. The flat in Peckham, which she and Severus had shared, appeared to have come coated in a thin and omnipresent layer of grime that required constant cleaning, yet never loosened its hold despite the battles waged upon its grubby squadron. Lily had wasted innumerable hours hunched over a tub or a sink or a peeling linoleum floor, scrubbing brush in hand, breaking her back to keep the place at its best, and for what?

Sev never bothered with his share of the chores, not until the day she left—his last, best effort to make her stay—but Mary's flat is so neat, and so pretty, and so shiny-penny new, that if Lily weren't so certain that she won't be able to afford this place come the end of her lease with Sev, she'd feel like Cinderella emerging from the drudges of her stepmother's attic, ascending the steps of the prince's castle, and destined for a better life. This kind of idealistic dreaming had gone some way towards convincing her sign a new lease for _this_ apartment—last week, in a tiny set of offices not too far from the building itself—to begin with, but it is Mary who must take most of the credit. Mary wheedled, cajoled, and maneuvered her into making the leap, and so a thin membrane of anxiety—not entirely unlike the Peckham grime—has sheathed her every stray thought since the moment she put pen to paper and agreed to hold herself responsible for fifty percent of her new home.

Just before she reaches the bathroom door, it's thrown open from the inside and a man steps out, his modesty protected by a pair of off-white briefs that could use a couple of runs through a hardy washing machine. His dark, floppy, nineties-boy-band hair falls inelegantly into his face, framing a pair of razor-sharp cheekbones, and he looks utterly discomfited to have happened across her there.

"Morning," he says stiffly, moving his hands to cover his crotch.

"Morning," she replies, with an equally stiff smile. "Eddie, is it?"

His nod is brief. "Laurel, right? Nice to meet you."

 _Clown,_ she thinks. "You too."

She looks like an unholy mess, she knows, her eyes bloodshot and puffy, her hair twisted into knotted, gravity-defying contortions, with the unmistakable odor of an alcoholic binge wafting around her person.

To add a point in her favour, at least _she_ wears nice, freshly-washed undergarments. Mary never would have shagged this guy if she'd seen the state of his pants.

They share a look of mutual, primly British judgement, and pass each other like ships.

The shower is a hot, cleansing reprieve from hangover city, not enough to make her feel completely better, but enough to oil the creaking creases of her limbs, strip the lethargy from her bones, and inject her with some much needed life. She imagines the dirt and sweat of a crowded bar running down her skin in rivulets and evaporating in the heat, scrubs the scent of her wine-fuelled shame from her long, thick hair, and feels clean again.

Unlike Eddie's briefs, which are a sad disaster.

If Mary decides to keep this one around—much as Lily would prefer literally _anyone_ to Sucks-Hard-Boiled-Eggs-Like-a-Serial-Killer Todd—there will need to be a serious talk, because she's rather put-off by his choice of underwear. It's not as if her friend met him by chance in a club; he was invited to the apartment in advance, so he should have known better than to come clad in such atrociously dirty pants.

Strange, that Eddie. Hadn't he been wearing glasses before?

No, she thinks, and wipes a creeping trail of shampoo from her forehead before it can launch an assault on her left eye. That was the other guy she met last night, the one she'd mistaken for Eddie at first. _He_ was much taller, with those lovely, sinewy forearms, and that hair, and that distractingly beautiful mouth.

He'd told her that her hair was silky, and there'd been a cat, she thinks, and his bed was—

No, wait. That happened in her dream, not in—

Bathroom. She met him in the bathroom.

She'd been in _this_ bathroom, but then—but the towels had been different. Snowy white and fluffy. Mary's towels are black.

He'd been _in_ the bathroom, caught her in his arms when she stumbled, and she'd—her shoe—she'd thrown—

There's _one_ shoe sitting on her bedroom floor. One. She hasn't seen the other.

But he...

And she…

 _Holy fucking shit._

* * *

There are three seemingly disparate—though, in actuality, exasperatingly connected—phenomena that rouse James from his previously planned, much deserved, yet likely _long_ doomed Saturday morning lie-in.

The first, offensively, is Algernon, found squatting coolly atop James's face, clearly set on suffocation.

The next, irritatingly, is a silver, spangley, high-heeled shoe, which looms insidiously over James from his bedside table, like the bloody Ghost of Evening Past.

And the last, subsequently, is James's own sudden urge to pop into his office, a desperate play for concrete facts and answers in the face of…well, grappling ignorance and stupidity, really.

And all this before he's even had his first cup of tea.

Bah humbug.

The asphyxiation-by-animal is taken care of swiftly—a disgruntled swat, followed by an affronted _yowl_ and a few arguably-earned retaliatory scratches sees the matter deftly settled. It is not an unfamiliar exchange. James has greeted many-a-dawn with a mouth full of cat fur and a nose being snugly smothered, as it is not a day ending in "y" if Algernon has not found something to be superiorly indignant about, and plopping himself down on his owner's-slash-best-mate's-slash-spiritual-subordinate's face whilst said tosser sleeps is one of the cat's preferred methods of expressing this (see also: long, judgmental stares, and cleverly-timed, sudden aversions to litter boxes). As a full-bodied feline, Algernon's point is _heavily_ clear: _please feel the literal weight of my displeasure_. And since James has raised the ol' fellow to be a cat of great moral fortitude who speaks up about his feelings and frustrations, he supposes there is no one to blame but himself. Plus, James is keenly aware of what's got Algernon so miffed this morning, and he can't argue the validity of the complaint. If murder _is_ actually, finally, meant to be done in this flat, the culprit will be Algernon, the victim will be James, and the cat will no doubt be acquitted posthaste on the basis of justifiable homicide.

Goodbye, James Potter, that useless, good-looking bastard. His life, face, dreams, and dignity were vaguely commendable while they lasted. May he rest in peace.

Sadly, murder is almost too good for him.

Which brings him—neatly, gloomily—back to the spangley shoe.

Lily Evans's silver, spikey, spangley shoe.

His housebreaker.

His…neighbour?

It's complicated.

If James were a sillier, stupider sort of man, he may have been able to convince himself that he'd dreamed up the entire commotion. Of _course_ a thoroughly sodded Lily Evans had not invaded his flat, shucked half her clothes, haughtily sassed him, flirted with him, attempted to impale him with her shoe, crawled into his bed, cuddled his cat, maimed his shin, laughed about pornography, then stumbled her way back out the door just after coquettishly claiming he was—and this was _quoting,_ mind— _real cute_. It is prime dream fodder, rubbish like that, minus maybe a few death threats and a better soundtrack. But the spangley heel in all its tangible glory shoots the dream theory straight to the ground.

It had happened.

The whole dastardly thing had most definitely, certainly, very much _happened_.

Frankly, James feels like garbage. He was up half the night lamenting and lambasting himself over it. _He_ was the sober one, after all. _He_ was the one confronting…well, still a stranger, he supposes, but less of a foreign entity than she was. They were on his turf, in his flat. The moment he'd realised what was afoot, he could've grabbed a dressing gown, swaddled her up as she hemmed and hawed and squawked in drunken protest, and determinedly marched her out the door and back to Next Door Mary's flat, a thirty-second endeavor from top to bottom. _That's_ what he was meant to have done. _That_ was the proper way to handle such a situation. Not… what he did. Which, honestly, had all gone a bit hazy. And the bits that he _could_ remember he was now working very hard to repress.

He _had_ been attempting to help. He comforts himself with that, at least. His intentions were not awful. The whole encounter had just gone cock-up so fast, that he— _he_ , who has always prided himself on his quick wit and keen ability to talk himself in and out of just about anything—had gone completely gobsmacked and useless. When she wakes up this morning and recalls…well, any of it, really, though James wonders what exactly will manage to filter through…she is going to be furious. Insulted. Mortified. Who was the arsehole who'd had his hands all over her intoxicated person, who was too busy ogling and bantering with her to get her clothed, or in the right place, or even a cup of bloody water? Why hadn't he got her a cup of bloody water? These are the things you _do_ when assailed upon by a smashed girl, and James had done none of them. If she never spoke to him again, it would almost be too soon.

He'll laugh about this one day, he's sure.

Ha ha, so funny, goddess invasion, stupid shoe.

But today is not that day.

It is most definitely, _definitely,_ not that day.

Which is likely why James finds himself stumbling out of bed, offending his cat, eyeing a woman's high heel like it's a complex puzzle sent from the eighth circle of hell to drive him spare, and pulling on his clothes to head out into the world when all he'd really meant to do that morning was wallow beneath his covers, watch Netflix, and see which take-away service was still willing to come within a twelve-block radius of the building.

The best laid plans, and all that.

His timing proves fortuitous—a speculative cracking of his bedroom door brings the familiar clatter of the shower running and Sirius's devoted yet off-key singing. While muffled beats overtaken by the occasional warbling "Jaaaaasooooon Derrrr-ullllooo," are hardly what James would consider musical masterpiece, he's nonetheless quite relieved about the reprieve from the same four lines of the same two _Cinderella_ songs Sirius has in his repertoire, which was the concert James had been diligently—and repeatedly—treated (subjected) to last night. Sirius can belt every single one of Jason Derulo's self-branded hits until he drowns himself in there. Even if James hadn't had a specific location in mind, he's not all that certain he would have been able to resist making a hasty escape from the flat during this brief window of opportunity.

There is surely only so much merciless teasing one man is expected to take.

James had hit his quota sometime around two a.m., with the twenty-sixth singing of, "Cinder-RELLY, Cinder-RELLY, words-words- _words_ , Cinder-RELLY—!"

Sirius has nothing on Jaq-Jaq and Gus-Gus when it comes to helpfulness or lyrical aptitude, but that is apparently not much of a deterrent.

So James toes into his trainers, grabs his phone, and pulls up a text to Remus.

 **Picking u up in 10,** he writes.

Naturally, the terribly dependable Remus is awake and responsive. The three bubbles of typing appear, and then Remus's reply: **Why?**

 **EMERGENCY!** James adds several dead-face emojis to emphasize this appropriately, even though Remus hates emojis. **Shame, regrets, desperation, etc.**

 **Can we do McDonalds first?**

 **Did u not understand EMERGENCY**

 **Is someone bleeding? Dying?**

 **Yes. My soul.**

 **We can feed your soul.**

Hm. James never _did_ get any of that pizza. **U make a decent point. McDs, THEN emergency.**

With that, James closes out the message and tucks the phone in his pocket. Checking one last time to ensure the shower is still going—"Jassssssonnn Derrrrullllloo—!"—he grabs his keys and makes his cowardly escape out the flat.

* * *

Despite much talk of coercive kidnapping and a prisoner's right to supplied sustenance, James firmly refuses to buy Remus's McMuffin and hash brown.

This is only fair, James has decided.

When one stops and thinks on it—as James now has done—this disaster really _is_ all Remus's fault.

"My fault?" Remus sulks in the passenger seat, mourning his lost five quid and a breakfast sandwich that—he claims—is simply _not_ as scrummy when one has to purchase it oneself. He pecks discontentedly at his food bag. "You haven't even told me what soul-killing menace has struck. Or where we're going, for that matter."

"Ow-fice," James manages, mouth half-full of McMuffin. He pulls out the drive-thru, then hangs a sharp left toward the high street, taking some comfort in the misty drizzle that trickles down upon the windshield, like the universe is willing to shed a few meaningful tears of camaraderie for him.

Remus—clearly less a comrade—considers this incredulously. "So it's a building emergency?"

James grunts a noncommittal reply.

In all fairness to Remus…how exactly James came to be the sole owner and proprietor of Ron A. Glen Properties—and thus, landlord of the very same building he currently lives in—is perhaps a larger curiosity than one single culprit can be properly blamed for.

But James had certainly never had any great desire to break into property management or real estate. Sure, he loved a good, brutal game of Monopoly as much as the next well-rounded human, but the idea that he may one day find himself collecting rents and maintaining complexes in any real-world scenario? Nearly _laughable_ until very recently.

And none of it would have come to pass if it weren't for ruddy Remus and his bloody contagious bleeding heart syndrome.

There James had been, a perfectly happy, perfectly aimless uni student, when he gets a ring from his good mate—needs a favour, Remus says. Free labour, more like. Remus had practically emerged from the womb with a teaching degree, but was doing part-time volunteering at a school in Hackney while he earned the official paperwork. There was a community outreach programme that put on weekly football clinics for underprivileged kids, and Remus was attempting to start up a team for his Year 7s. As the token athletic mate, James was wrangled in as coach. Truthfully, he hadn't minded. It was once or twice a week, and the lads were a fun, good-humoured lot. Some of them cared less about the actual sport than others, just wanted a place to be that wasn't home, a few more hours to goof off with their mates, a free meal now and again, but James reckoned that was just as well. Churning out pro footballers was not the programme's main intent (disloyal to their country's sport as that may be).

He does it for a few weeks, then a few months. The programme has a few branches about London, including two other teams in Islington—another boys' team, and one girls'—and James becomes chummy with the other coaches. One of them works for the programme, and James eventually gets the full rundown—they constantly feel on the verge of collapse; funding is forever an issue; they're caught between the decision of trying to expand to gain more footing, more data, to prove the programme works, or remaining small so they can make certainwhat they _do_ have _remains_ working. They'd love to grow the programme beyond just football even, but there are permits to consider, and not every school had a Remus to nudge the kids who could benefit most in the programme's direction, and the families were more often than not suspicious of charity, and had she mentioned funding, funding, _funding_?

James didn't know the answer to these dilemmas, but he _did_ know one thing: he wanted to help.

Moreover—James _had_ funding. Sort of.

Fleamont Potter, James's dad, was a wily young chemist who—to hear him tell it—accidentally stumbled upon the formula for a frightfully effective hair serum. And from that one serum came another…then another...then _another_ , and soon enough, Sleakeazy Hair Solutions was born. Several decades and several _billion_ pounds later, the company was—also Fleamont's words—swimming along nicely. As such, James has had a trust fund gathering dust for almost as long as he's been alive. He gained access to it at twenty-one, but beyond mild living expenses, he's never had much reason to use it. Truthfully, he feels a bit grubby about taking out more than a few quid here and there. The trust fund money _is_ James's money, legally, but it's his _parents'_ money in most other senses, and James has always been keenly aware of that.

If he was going to make any kind of real go at aiding the programme, growing it, fixing it, whatever he was contemplating…well, he wanted it to be _his_ money, full stop.

Which meant James needed some kind of investment.

And the building? It just sort of…fell into his lap.

"You won't believe it," Sirius came home ranting one night, slamming closed the flat door with much incensed gusto. "I've just come from the pub—stupid Leonard is selling the fucking building! Our home, right out from under us! The drunkard wants to retire to _Majorca._ What the bloody hell is in Majorca?"

"Retired people?" James had suggested, mostly unaffected by these revelations. "Sun? Sand? Peace from you?"

Sirius let loose a sound of disgust. "It's all jokes until some hipster tech bastard buys us up and starts trying to make us all use solar panels. And _recycle._ "

"You are definitely meant to be recycling now," James had interjected. "You do know we get _fined_ when you're not recycling, correct? It's very important to me that you acknowledge this."

Sirius made another disgruntled noise, and slammed into his room.

But while Sirius continued to rile himself up over the perilous fate of their flat… James started thinking about that hipster bastard.

Because why couldn't the hipster bastard… be him?

Well, for one thing, he knew absolutely _nothing_ about property management or how to run an apartment complex. There really was no arguing that. But as luck would have it, Leonard wasn't in any big rush to pack it in and flee to Majorca. When James tentatively broached the topic with him, he was in fact all too delighted about the prospect of passing on both his wisdom _and_ his property to— _very_ important criteria—a fellow Chelsea man. For near six months, for the reduced price of a few pints every couple of nights, James received his own private course on real estate management. Leonard walked him through it all—the permits, the licenses, the insurance, the vendors…for a bloke who James doesn't reckon he'd seen fully sober even once since he'd first met him, Leonard was a savvy manager. James had to use his trust fund as collateral to get the bank loan to purchase the building, but it was still, in every way he could manage it, his own transaction.

So now, at twenty-four, James owned and ran an apartment building, and used any of the proceeds from that—after loan payments and expenses and handymen…so _many_ handymen—to help grow the programme. He is now a member of the programme's Board, which Sirius says means he's swotty.

He's a business owner and a swot, and it's all Remus's fault.

And Remus's guilt doesn't even end _there._ But James wanted full confirmation of what he was dealing with before he spun down _that_ disastrous hole.

The management company offices are about ten minutes from the building itself, two little rooms and a quaint dodgy loo inside a larger office park. James had discovered early on that tenants become terribly cross if they can't get hold of someone in the office at the very instant they _maybe_ saw some kind of bug crawl out of their sink, or _perhaps_ smell some kind of whiff of strange scent, or aren't _fully_ certain the fire alarm is working—is the blinking green light good? Originally James had all the office calls forwarded to his mobile, but that quickly became unbearable, not to mention he worked very hard to keep the fact that he owned the building from most of the other tenants, and hearing him at the end of every call did not necessarily assist with that. So he'd hired a diligent admin by the name of Mrs. Figg who came in three days a week to field calls and sort paperwork and generally make James's life much more pleasant. James himself only popped in the office once a week, and even then just to clean off his desk and sign whatever check or contract Mrs. Figg thrust at him. The rest of the calls and bookkeeping he can just as easily manage from home, so the flat serves as his satellite offices.

The office park is basically dead on a Saturday morning, so he pulls his car into an empty slot right in front the building, springing out the car with restless energy. Remus follows along at a much more sedate pace.

"What's got you so wired?" his mate asks, suspicious.

James waves off the question. If his own suspicions about last night are correct, it will all become cruelly clear very soon.

They're before the door of Ron A. Glen Properties soon enough, and James pulls out his keys and unlocks the office. The main room is modest at best—cream-coloured, with some generic art pieces hanging on the walls, a few chairs, and Mrs. Figg's tidy work space. Beyond the admin's desk is a big window that looks in on James's own office—same tiny size, a bit messier, many more cat pictures. The connecting door to his office is locked too, but what James needs likely isn't in there anyway. He heads straight for Mrs. Figg's desk instead.

"What are we looking for?" Remus asks, watching James begin to rummage around the desk.

"A file folder," James answers, lifting up a stack of lift maintenance contracts. "Paperwork for the new tenant in 308."

Remus joins James at the desk, starts prodding at various desk litter, too. "308? Is that the flat next to yours?"

James nods.

"Do you not approve of them?" Remus grabs a few folders, skims their labels. "Caused trouble already?"

James lets out a choked snort. "Something like that."

The desktop is a dead-end. As Remus begins to peruse through some of Mrs. Figg's desk drawers, James heads for the filing cabinets at the corner of the room.

A minute later, he's found it.

He doesn't even need to open the file. Written neatly on the folder tab in Mrs. Figg's blocky scrawl, his answer is in big black letters, clear as day:

 **EVANS, LILY (308)**

"Fuck me," James sighs, pulling it out.

He doesn't know what he was expecting, hoping. He'd _known_ it was her. Could only _be_ her. She'd said her name was Lily. Her looks—hair that red, eyes that green—were anything but common. He'd been watching her get strangled on the telly literally seconds before stumbling upon her in the bathroom. She was one and the same. The _Orphan Black_ theory had always been statistically less likely.

Shit.

Remus comes up behind him, plucking the file from James's hands. He reads the tab, too, lets out a garbled snort.

"You're kidding." He flips the folder open. James knows one of the very first things in the file will be a photocopy of Lily's license. Her picture. "This is...she's living in your building? Next door?"

James can only nod in mournful, tragic, resignation.

"Fuck me," Remus agrees, grinning.

* * *

The first time James sees Lily Evans, he's inside a cramped little London theatre, striving not to fall asleep.

An (he's convinced) entirely rigged game of paper, scissors, rock finds him Remus's unwilling hostage to some swotty borefest play called _To the Ends of the World_. James doesn't mind theatre normally, but he's knackered from a long day of phone calls to the city about reserving a proper pitch for the programme, and _knows_ Sirius had had paper showing before Peter had made some kind of signal and suddenly Sirius's flashing two fingers with ill-kept innocence. But Remus had wanted James to be his companion all along—Sirius never shuts up during any live entertainment, and Peter's stomach gurgles embarrassingly loudly if it isn't fed every half-hour—so it was a three-to-one ruling against James's vehement objections. He'd showered, dressed, and an hour later, was squeezing his long limbs into a seat he's rather certain was made exclusively for a primary school audience, decidedly grumpy about the whole thing.

And then the play had started, and James forgot to be grumpy.

Frankly, he's pretty certain at least half the finer details of the play went straight over his head on that first viewing. Like an episode of _Westworld_ that James needs explained by three other sources before he properly understands, it seemed to have too many shifting parts. But despite the holes in his comprehension, the redheaded woman who'd played the lead, who James had sat there and watched perform her arse off for two hours... _she_ was a bloody marvel. Besides being almost distractingly gorgeous, she'd handled the portrayal of her character—a woman caught in a tumultuous affair, slowly breaking apart and painstakingly putting herself back together again within the course of the narrative—with a strength of passion and emotion that James had rarely—if ever—seen. He was no expert, but he wasn't the only one who'd noticed. At curtain call, she'd got the most rousing round of applause by far.

At the close of the performance, James had checked the playbill again.

The actress's name was Lily Evans.

She must be some West End darling slumming it down in a lower theatre, he decided. When he returned back to the flat, he'd been curious enough to Google her.

She didn't have a Wikipedia page.

She _was_ on IMDb, but had only a few sporadic credits to her name—a three-episode stint on a teen soap; a side part in some Austen Masterpiece Theatre remake; Woman in Club #2 on _Law & Order_; and murder victim— _twice_!—on _Crime Scene_.

This seemed pure sacrilege to James. Lily Evans was a wonder. How can the world not have noticed yet?

A week later, James is still absently thinking about the play enough that he caves, buying tickets again and forcing Sirius to come along. If anything, it's even better this time round, even with Sirius whispering asides every three minutes.

James buys tickets for his parents two weeks after that, acting terribly nonchalant as he tags along. Fleamont claps politely at the end, calling it riveting, while Euphemia purses her lips and eyes James suspiciously.

"That's the fourth time you've mentioned that actress," she said with clear accusation. "Are you dating her? Why must you be so dramatic about these things? She was wonderful. Just introduce us like a normal boyfriend, will you?"

So it seems James's little crush on Lily Evans was not exactly subtle.

He'd sat through the three episodes of the teen soap, only watching them the once because her storyline more or less centered around her eyeing up some tosser footballer, spending far too much time snogging him on screen before they (as expected) break up in highly dramatic fashion. The Austen he'd found on eBay, and learned she looked as fit in empire-waisted costumes as in modern theatre trousers and top. His favorites were admittedly the crime procedurals, despite the fact that she always seemed to end up dead.

On YouTube, he found a few commercials, and a behind the scenes promo clip for _To the Ends of the World_ , which features thirty glorious seconds of Lily Evans, as herself, talking about the part, smiling fetchingly, cracking a joke about how her character has taught her exactly how _not_ to handle romantic relationships. She's so bloody charming, James is certain that half of the video's 24,789 views are him.

All right, so he got a bit obsessed. But where was the harm?

Before the play had closed a few months ago, James had gone to see it one last time on his own. He'd had mad thoughts for a few moments about maybe attempting to hang around the stage door, see if he could meet her, but any way he reasoned that it just sounded too creepy. It was a harmless, if heady, crush. Fun, silly, but no need to make it more than that. She's a spectacular, beautiful actress. She's likely got a dashing, rich, doting boyfriend already. James was perfectly content to watch her from afar, stalk her online good-naturedly, let his obsessive fancy run its course like all the other overblown fancies that had come before it, and call it a day. Lily Evans was safe from him.

And then she broke into his flat.

Moved into his building.

Left her shoe behind to torment him.

Bugger.

* * *

James tells Remus the whole story, all the sad, pathetic details of the evening before, of meeting Lily Evans—yes, _that_ Lily Evans—as she drunkenly happened into his flat, tried to either kill him or proposition him, he's really not sure, and how he somehow (soberly) ended up with his face in her chest, anyway.

The tale does not become any less pathetic upon retelling.

Remus's ill-suppressed humour seems to confirm this, which is why James is very glad not to have brought him breakfast. This only grows more prominent when Remus slips Lily's file back into the cabinet, pushes the drawer closed, gives James an amused look, and says, "Well, reckon that officially scraps the Sasha Dictate then, doesn't it?"

James blinks at the question, startled. "The...that's what you've taken from all this?" He immediately goes gimlet-eyed. "It's not even relevant!"

"Not relevant?" Remus gives a hearty snort of disbelief. "I'm sorry, are you trying to suggest that you _wouldn't_ date Lily Evans?"

"I'm suggesting she wouldn't date _me_ ," James corrects, and his stomach roils skittishly at the words. "But even if, by some happenstance miracle, she _did_ strike her head, get amnesia, and agree to such a lunatic thing…" James sits up straighter in Mrs. Figg's chair. "No. I wouldn't. The Dictate stands."

"James," Remus says dubiously.

"It _stands_."

It is clear that declarations of dictate fidelity are not going to sway Remus from his scepticism, but James remains stubbornly on-message, reminding himself it's a moot point anyway. After last night, Lily Evans will never, ever want to be in the same _room_ with him again, much less _date_ him. James will never even have reason to test his resolve with the Sasha Dictate—also known as the Never-Date-Anyone-Who-Lives-in-the-Building-You-Own-You-Berk Dictate.

James had learned that lesson the hard way, about six months after officially signing on the dotted line with Leonard. The Dictate got its shorter nomer in honor of Sasha Peters, a pretty and vivacious student who James had first met in this very office, the day she had arrived to sign a new lease for flat 204 in James's building.

Sasha was whimsical and charming, and she and James had clicked immediately. James had been a bit stressed about all the responsibility he'd just taken on, a bit daunted by the changes, and Sasha was like an easy breath of fresh air: fun, quirky, and right downstairs whenever James wanted to see her. For awhile, it seemed like a perfect set-up, having his girlfriend so close at hand. And James supposes it _was_...for a bit.

It didn't take more than three months together for James to realise that, while Sasha _was_ lovely and fresh and fun...she also wasn't necessarily someone James could turn to on days when he was stressed, or evenings when he just wanted to relax rather than take her out to dinner or meet her friends at the uni pub. She had moods like the wind, and had a habit of turning up in James's flat with no warning, parking herself in front of the telly, and camping there for the weekend. It drove Sirius up the wall to constantly stumble upon her in his space, and James had tried talking to Sasha more than once about boundaries and living spaces, all to little avail. Her solution was simply to go park herself in James's room, where Algernon was outraged by the invasion and, frankly, James wasn't all that thrilled, either. She's get offended when James got firm with her about it, but he wasn't sure what else he could do.

She was, James realised now, likely the wrong person to become involved with at a time when his life had gone a bit upside down, and it had moreover not been very fair of him to be using her as more or less of a distraction for so long in the first place. What he knew at the time was that they clearly wanted different things from the relationship, and that's the reasoning he'd used when he'd finally broken things off. Sasha had been upset, spent a few weeks oscillating erratically between treating James coldly each time they passed in the building, and showing up at his doorstep at 2 a.m. begging to speak with him. It was exhausting, but not terribly unusual when battling a less-than-mutual break-up.

And then James got the call from Mrs. Figg.

"204 is two-weeks gone on their rent," she'd told him, sounding very hesitant about it. "Shall I give them a ring? Send a note?"

James had been utterly perturbed to hear which flat was late on their rent. With dread in his stomach, James told Mrs. Figg he'd take care of it, and began hoping maybe it would turn out to be a simple bank error. They occurred from time to time.

And, indeed, when James finally got ahold of Sasha, that was her explanation for it—though she made no fewer than three separate snippy comments about what kind of disasters had to occur in order to get James to speak to her again.

James ignored it, said thank you, and cashed the check.

A week or so later, James got a routine plumbing maintenance request for Sasha's flat. He immediately sent for a plumber to take a look, but the man called James back afterward in a disgruntled mood. There had been absolutely nothing wrong with the shower.

The next week, when the next request came in about some broken flooring, James went up himself to check.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the flooring, either, except a brassed-off Sasha tapping her foot impatiently against the wood as James inspected it.

And on and on it went, one game after another, until James finally snapped at her, told her he'd evict her if she didn't quit putting through false claims, riling up other tenants in the building by gossiping about things she claimed had gone wrong, wasting everyone's time. It finally seemed to get through to her, but the whole thing left James with a bitter taste in his mouth, and left an even icier Sasha roaming the building for the remaining four months of her lease.

The day James learned Sasha wasn't extending her lease was the day he'd set down his Dictate. He was never dating anyone in the building ever again. Sasha may have been a particularly awful example of what could go wrong, but that only cemented the thing. It was not good business, not good logic, and just plain rubbish for James.

The Sasha Dictate was alive and well.

And Lily Evans...was not going to change that.

Even if she _did_ somehow find him tolerable...well, she didn't, so the point was—again—moot, but that was neither here nor there. James wasn't going to change his very important rule because of some heady crush on what was likely a trumped-up fantasy. She was a virtual stranger, albeit one he'd known of from afar for months. That couldn't change anything. _Wouldn't_ change anything. James had his life in balance, and he wasn't willing to topple that again on a 'd be completely ludarious.

The solution, James decides then, is simply to go over to her flat later today, apologise profusely for everything that had gone so wrong last night, and hope to god she didn't have him arrested for stalking or negligence.

He'd do it when he returned to the flat. First thing.

Or...you know, maybe after lunch. He was always better after lunch.

Or even dinner! Really, the later in the day, the better. She'd probably be off doing...actress things, anyway. He'd catch her when she returned, which could be quite late.

Seven p.m., likely.

Or—eight could work too.

No later than nine.

Right.

* * *

Vivid memories of her exploits return to Lily in dribs and drabs over the course of about ten minutes; an unrelenting onslaught of many terrible moments in painstaking detail, HD ready and brutally unfair, considering what her body has already been put through as recompense for her boozy night out with Kingsley, who texts her as she's getting out of the shower to ask if she'll be at ballroom class—which she can't afford, but King has refused to take money from her for at least two years now, insisting that her natural talent and superior hair-flipping abilities are payment enough, hence the great sulk of 2015 when she got a bob cut—later tonight.

Ballroom class! As if she can _dance_ in the state she's in. Kingsley may be fresh as a daisy and even now pounding a coconut water with added electrolytes while his personal-trainer boyfriend prepares to spot him on an upright row, but she's got the cast of _Stomp_ banging dustbin lids in her head, as well as every other tried-and-tested symptom of a hangover to end all hangovers, with none of the accompanying memory loss.

What a strong, reliable brain she has.

Except for when she's plastered, and turns into the bleeding Sim burglar, creeping into people's homes—scary music not included, but probably required.

Kingsley isn't happy to learn that she's ditching _('But I've choreographed a salsa routine to The Boy Does Nothing and I only picked that song for YOU, you harridan crone xox')_ but she's been going to his bloody class since she was eighteen years old; she won't forget how to execute a turn if she misses tonight. He runs innumerable dance classes a week at the academy, and it's always a given that Lily can't have regular days because of the nature of her job. Kingsley's only mad about tonight because he'll have to partner with somebody else, when he frequently lambastes most of his Saturday night students as flailing morons with Pringle-tin limbs.

She texts him back and promises to get another bob if he doesn't leave her alone—a threat that always works, because from a purely aesthetic perspective, King would be the first to admit that he's obsessed with her long red hair—which shuts him up, leaving her in peace to ruminate on the fact that she embarked on a crime spree last night.

Breaking-and-entering. Assault. And she may as well add sexual harassment into the mix. Huh.

She doesn't want to think of how many laws she broke in what must have been a twenty-minute window, but she knows the number is far too high, and she knows that the only pardonable crime was the first one she committed because she really had been sure—drunk and stupid, yes, but _sure—_ that she was walking into her flat. If she'd only listened to him when he told her she was in the wrong place… but she didn't, stubborn as a mule as always, even when she's barely lucid.

When she leaves for work, dragging her bike with her, she also leaves Mary none the wiser as to what she got up to last night. Her friend will likely laugh herself to death when she finds out, then rise again with a renewed ambition to ensure that Lily spends the rest of her life being appropriately teased for what she did, so she can wait another few hours to be filled in on all the gory details.

And the thing is, it doesn't seem all that funny right now, but deeply upsetting on so many awful fronts, and she hasn't quite reached a point where she can take a good-natured ribbing about this incident on the chin.

She feels like a thoroughly shitty person.

It's bad enough that she must contend with being dumb and careless enough to get so drunk that she walked into another person's home with no concern for her own safety, which was an appallingly stupid decision on her part. She's wise enough to know that any other door, on any other night, or any other _person_ _—_ not the admirably patient man whose bathroom she wound up in—might have seen her badly hurt.

But she must add to that her behaviour; the unreasonable violence, her own audacity, and the fact that she absolutely, unequivocally—no matter how often she might try to deny it, or how determined she is that her sister never find out, even if that means taking her secret to the grave with her—made an attempt to seduce him, a man she had never met before in her life. Whilst drunk, and no-doubt incomprehensible.

After breaking into his flat.

And throwing a shoe at him.

And kicking him with all her might, she'd almost forgotten about that. If only she had.

She may have stolen a slice of pizza, too—she remembers eating one—but she's less clear on how that came to be.

He's going to think she's trash—some trollop who lurched her drunken way into his home, stinking of booze and probably a ragged mess—the way she's thought of so many men she's met who leered at her, or touched her without permission, and generally got too close; the kind of men who've made her feel uncomfortable, and at times, even afraid.

Worrying that he'll think of her that way just makes her feel worse, because her thoughts should be for him and how he's feeling, not her own selfish concerns.

But she thinks she may have liked the guy.

James. That was his name. Handsome chap, that one. He had a spectacular cat, and didn't try anything amiss.

She liked him. She thinks.

In truth, she doesn't really know. She can't trust her boozy recollections enough to know what she feels. She might be misremembering something, or overstating his appeal because of beer goggles—not that she drank any beer, but there was a point last night where she lost track of every kind of spirit she'd consumed, so she's at as much of a loss as anyone. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. If she's capable of breaking-and-entering, who knows what else she might be liable to do?

She has to carry her bike down the stairwell because it won't fit in the elevator, and she doesn't have a lock with which to secure it outside, thanks to Sev, who is holding it—and several other possessions of hers—captive, in a bid to entice her back to Peckham, though since she blocked him on social media and got a new number for her phone, his methods of contact have been severely limited.

Two days ago, she'd woken up to find that he'd transferred £500 into her bank account with a payment reference of 'CANWETLK,' evidently under the impression that—when all else failed—he could benefit from her financial woes by purchasing her forgiveness.

She'd sent the money back at once, so he'd tried again yesterday, adding another hundred to the pot, and she once again returned it.

Lily hasn't checked again today, but should she find another increase in her balance, she will not be surprised.

She hears a man's voice in the lobby when she reaches the bottom of the stairs, and pauses on the third-from-bottom step, just out of sight from anyone who may be standing in the communal area. From her vantage point, she can see the main entryway to the building, but she can't see the mailboxes that line the far-left wall, nor the collection of armchairs near the elevators, nor the noticeboard where people post their buy-and-sell flyers, and she has no way to look without immediately being spotted. She's noticed in the last week that people tend to congregate in the space—which makes sense, as it's light and open, with free newspapers and cheerful potted trees dotted here and there—and the last thing she wants is to walk smack-bang into James as she attempts a shamefaced exit from the building.

The man is speaking very quietly, and Lily has to strain her ears to catch what he is saying, pressed tight against the wall like an inept spy with a rusty bicycle that insists upon squeaking when its tyres touch ground.

"Yes, that's right," the man is saying. "For four, please, and the name is—shall I spell it? Yes. Papa, Romeo, echo, whiskey, echo, tango, tango, first name Gideon—" The man moves towards the front entrance with his phone pressed to his ear and his back to her, but Lily can immediately tell that he's not her neighbour. His hair is far too tidy. "A table by the window, if you have it, but if not—"

"BOO!" cries someone from behind her.

Lily is quite an accomplished screamer—she'd have to be, having played a murder victim on the same show _twice_ —but no acting chops are required this time around, and the cry that escapes her now is completely genuine. Her bicycle tumbles down the last three steps and clatters to the lobby floor, and Gideon-by-the-door pauses in his restaurant booking to jump out of his skin, whip around, and glare at her before he storms out, as if she started yelling her head off just for the fun of ruining his morning.

She turns around to confront her attacker and finds herself looking at a face she thinks she knows, albeit with a clouded, uncertain, pizza-centric kind of familiarity, from James's flat last night—pale and finely sculpted, with an elegant nose, light grey eyes, and a sleek tumble of long black hair.

"Hullo, Lily," he says pleasantly, and his mouth stretches into the evilest Cheshire cat grin she's ever seen. "How's your head feeling?"

Nope.

She's not doing this today.

With great promptness, Lily turns on her heel and pelts down the stairs, pausing to swoop down and collect her bike, then straightens up and wheels it toward the door at speed. Unfortunately, he follows, jogging alongside her as if they're two old friends engaging in a spot of pleasant conversation.

"I'm Sirius, by the way," he tells her as they walk. "Like the constellation. Why did you carry your bike downstairs? Can't you chain it up outside?"

Is this guy _for real?_

This grinning idiot just leapt out at her in a stairwell like Ghostface, now he's asking her inane questions about her bike like nothing untoward has happened, and she's supposed to—what? Be fine with it? Engage?

She ought to sock him in the nose—though that probably wouldn't improve her standing with his flatmate, who she likes.

Or thinks she likes.

"Don't have a lock," she tartly responds.

"Why don't you have a lock?"

"My ex-flatmate has it."

"Why can't you get it back from them?"

"It's something of a hostage situation, and I'd rather not have to see him again, lest I _become_ the bloody hostage," she says, having reached the revolving door, but in her haste to escape this strange, grinning enemy, she shoves it into a wedge with unnecessary force, inadvertently jamming the door shut. "Can you help me with this?"

"No," he says. "What do you mean, 'hostage situation?'"

She stops trying to pull her bicycle free of the door—one of the pedals is impeding its exit—and glares at him. "Are you, in fact, a six-year-old boy inhabiting a grown man's body? Because I haven't heard so many 'but why' questions since primary school, only _those_ kids had the slightly redeeming factor of being remotely comprehensible."

Sirius lets out a sharp, quick laugh that's oddly reminiscent of a bark.

"Look at that, she bites!" he triumphantly cries. "But no need to be so hostile, Cinders."

 _"Cinders?"_

"I'm simply checking in on my new neighbour, since, y'know, you were generous enough to check in on us last night."

"I was drunk last night—"

"As I witnessed," he says wryly. "Plus, James mentioned that you were quite a handful."

"—and I'll apologise to him later," she finishes, and moves to the other side of her bike to push the revolving door in the other direction and release the trapped pedal. "Now, if you don't mind—"

"I sincerely hope you _do_ apologise," says Sirius—like the constellation, apparently—and shoves his hands in his pockets. "I've haven't seen him that angry in really a long time."

On the verge of forcing the entirety of her bike through the door with the front wheel suspended at eye level, Lily stops and stares at him, all warmth draining out of her face. "He was?"

"Oh yeah, he was fuming."

"But he seemed—"

"He said you ruined his night," says Sirius, with a nonchalant shrug, his eyes betraying no insincerity. "He said that you'd probably try to turn it all around on him and accuse him of manhandling—"

"I _wouldn't!"_

"—and that probably nobody would believe him over you, even though you were the one who was flirting with him," he finishes, and smiles pleasantly at the look of shock on Lily's face. "Don't look at _me_ like that. I'm just the messenger."

But look at him like that she does, while she processes this information, now faced with the full repercussions of her misdemeanour, namely that the handsome next-door-neighbour, who she thinks she might fancy just a little, had his night entirely ruined by her drunk, moronic presence, and that he hates her now, and has probably registered a high-level complaint about her with Ron A. Glen Properties already, so she is shortly to be evicted, on top of everything else.

"I have to go to work," she tells him, after a moment of horrible silence, and pushes her way through the miniscule gap that sits between her bicycle and the stupid revolving door. "Don't want to be late. Bye."

"Bye," Sirius repeats, grinning broadly, and lifts his hand in a lazy wave of farewell. "Have an excellent time at the ball."

* * *

Mary Macdonald is one of those rare, exotic creatures who never need to work at weekends.

These bountifully blessed people exist outside of legend, and walk—bold as you like—among the unfortunate proletariats such as Lily Evans, heralding phrases like, 'hump day!' and 'TGIF!' as they flit merrily to their jobs with dubious titles, like 'human resources' or 'data analysis.' Mary works in commercial development, whatever that means, though it seems to involve taking a lot of social media breaks during work hours, excessive online shopping, and not an awful lot of any actual work, as far as Lily can tell.

As such, Lily comes home from a difficult, tiring day at the restaurant to find her housemate in a state of infuriating cheer that best befits a person who had nothing to do all day but eat, sleep, and rid her flat of a one-night stand. Mary's loitering in the kitchen when she walks in, opening a bottle of wine with a novelty corkscrew procured on a hen night (said corkscrew protrudes rather comically from the crotch of a tiny, plastic man), while one of her playlists—the aptly titled, 'Mary Kitchen Tunes'—provides an upbeat accompanying soundtrack.

Having Saturdays off must be marvellous.

That, or Eddie's grotty pants house a far more dexterous corkscrew than Lily gave him credit for.

"You're just in time for wine-o-clock!" cries her friend, by way of greeting, and waves the bottle of Malbec in a tantalising manner. "D'you want some? It's Argentinian."

"No, thank you."

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that."

"Please, don't pretend," says Lily flatly. "I'm officially never drinking again for at _least_ the rest of my life, and maybe the next ten years of yours."

She reaches the kitchen counter and drops a plastic carrier bag on its smooth marble surface, allowing the contents to spill out in a heap, while Mary pours herself a generous helping of wine and adds Lily's share to her glass for good measure.

"I called Pronto Pies to order us pizza, but they said they're not delivering to the building anymore because of an admin issue, so I'm fresh out of dinner ideas," she says, and takes a gluttonous mouthful. "What did you get up to last night, anyway?"

"That's not a question you want to be asking."

Mary clucks impatiently under her breath at her friend's reticence, then casts a suspicious eye over the assortment of goods that Lily has plonked on the counter. "Are you baking?"

"Yes."

"At 8pm?"

"Yes."

"What's inspired this— _ooh!"_ Mary sets down her glass and snatches up a bunch of ripe bananas—procured especially by Lily at a market that was very much out of her way after work, but it's all for a good cause—with an intrigued gleam in her eyes. "Are you making banana bread?"

Lily nods. "So we had a table full of loud American men come in about halfway through the day, and they gave me a £50 tip between them—"

"Nice!"

"—though it probably would have been more, but as I'm not _quite_ destitute enough to resort to selling my body, I had to decline their offer of a discreet night of adult fun in their hotel."

Lily has developed quite a talent for fending off inappropriate advances at work in such a way that keeps her gainfully employed _and_ earns her a tip at the end of their meal. A solid strategy to employ is that of fabricating a boyfriend, coupled with an excellent imitation of flattered surprise—she _knows_ she's very pretty, but the kind of men who find it acceptable to grope a server's thigh are usually the kind of men who hate confident women—which normally earns her a few quid when they pack up and leave.

She really hates her job.

Fake boyfriend's name was James today. Not deliberately, by any means. One of the Americans, the most determined of the lot, had asked—as if by catching her in a lie he could guilt her into a raucous fucking later—and it popped into her head.

"Wait," says Mary, frowning. "With all of them?"

For the second time in a very short minute, Lily nods.

"What the ever-loving fuck is _discreet_ about that?"

"Something about a blood pact, and a prostitute in Rio, and not telling their wives—I'm not sure of all the details," Lily explains, and ducks down to take a loaf tin out of the cabinet. "Either way, I had some spare cash, so before I scrub my brain with a wire brush, banana bread it is—"

"Yes!"

"—but you can't have any."

"Why not?"

"Because…" She pops back up, tosses the loaf tin next to the bananas and drums her fingers on the countertop, performing a quick-and-silent risk assessment—tell Mary or not tell Mary, get teased to within an inch of her life for the rest of time, or live in relative peace until somebody else tells her and she gets it twice as bad—but eventually decides, with a resigned sigh, that it's better to let her know than not. The alternative is feigning an interest in getting to know their neighbours, which Mary will _hate,_ and Lily doesn't have the energy to keep up that kind of ruse. "This is apologetic banana bread."

"What does that mean?"

"Do you know the people who live in 309?"

"The two boys next door? I know their cat," says Mary, with a puzzled frown, picking up her wine again. "He's a jumped-up little shit, which is—"

"—which is your favourite kind of cat, yeah," says Lily absently. "But you don't know _them?"_

"Should I?"

"Not really." A strand of hair has escaped from her bun, and she pushes it behind her ear. All or nothing, then. "But I _may_ have done a really bad thing last night."

Her shameful story takes them all the way through prep, and by the time she's finished, the banana bread is baking away and Mary has succumbed to several bouts of taunting laughter, though her biggest issue with the entire debacle is _not—_ as a normal person would assume—that Lily is guilty of trespassing, assault, and sexual harassment, but that she never made an attempt to kidnap the cat and present him to Mary as a housewarming gift.

"The banana bread is too much," is her official assessment, having reached the end of the sorry tale.

"Too much what?"

"Too much in general. You don't need to put in that much effort to make amends. Just buy him a pizza—well, no, Pronto Pies won't deliver. Just say sorry if you see him in the hall."

"And give the banana bread to you?"

Mary smiles sweetly at her. "Aren't I the _truly_ injured party here? I've _told_ you about that cat, and you had your chance to take him for me, yet here I am." She gestures around the kitchen to demonstrate the absence of a crotchety feline presence, her smile melting into an exaggerated pout. "Sad, catless, and forced to resort to throwing him kippers from the balcony again."

"I wondered why you were buying kippers."

"I wanted his attention, and he only responds to food," Mary counters, sounding all at once like a desperate singleton waiting for a guy to call, when in fact, buying kippers to chuck at the next-door neighbour's cat is more effort than she's ever expended to attract a mate.

"He responded to _me,_ and I didn't have food."

"Well, bully for you, Miss Perfect."

"I'm sorry." Lily places her hands on her hips, regarding Mary with some bewilderment. "I thought _I_ was the one with a crisis on her hands, so how has this been brought around to you not owning a cat?"

"What crisis? You stumbled into the wrong flat and gave a bloke an eyeful of your tits—he was probably thrilled, and you got home in one piece so he obviously wasn't a creeper, and anyway this is London. I know people who make friends that way."

Her housemate, Lily concludes, is not the right person to talk to about this. She sails through life with a devil-may-care contempt for other people—though clearly, not for cats—and as the situation is not so dire that she may be called upon to assist in the disposal of a bloodied body that Lily's got stashed beneath her bed, she's not going to take it seriously.

"I need to lie down for a bit," she mumbles.

Mary laughs at her, but Lily pays her no mind and stalks away, retreating to her bedroom to put on pyjamas and contemplate a nap, though she decides against it for the sake of safety. Knowing her luck, she'll sleep through her alarm and Mary will pass out in a wine-stupor, leaving the banana bread unguarded and unwatched in the oven, and the last thing she wants is for it—or the flat itself—to burn to an inedible crisp.

Instead, she spends an absent-minded hour sitting cross-legged on the floor, running a brush through her hair and watching _Brooklyn Nine-Nine_ clips on her phone, until her timer buzzes and she returns to the kitchen, and her banana bread, which comes out of the oven as moist and fragrant as she could have hoped.

"Perfect," she concludes, once she's taken an indulgent whiff, and covers her creation with a tea towel. "Thank Christ for that. I'll bring it over in the morning."

"Bring it over now, while it's still hot," commands Mary, who has wandered in from the living room to oversee the proceedings.

"I can't do it _now,_ it's half-past-nine on a Saturday night."

"And?"

"And, he's probably out." _With his girlfriend_ , she neglects to add.

It's entirely possible that James-the-Handsome-Neighbour doesn't have a girlfriend, and Lily's perfectly sure that she doesn't care either way. It only matters in so far that it's a possible excuse for his absence, should he happen to be out for the night.

But if he _does_ have a girlfriend—again, not that Lily cares—she's definitely a petite blonde named Rosalind who used to work in public relations before her YouTube channel grew too popular for her to spare time for her nine-to-five job. Now that Rosalind is a bona-fide social media influencer, she spends her days filming makeup tutorials and sharing beautifully-filtered travel snaps—her and her beach volleyball tan smiling brightly against a tropical backdrop—with her six-hundred-thousand Instagram followers.

Rosalind never gets drunk. She gets great mileage out of a single class of Cristal, which she will sip daintily all night, before retiring to bed early and rising with the sun to attend hot yoga. Rosalind is entirely wrong for James-the-Handsome-Neighbour, but his friends are too polite to tell him to his face. His cat has obviously tried to warn him of the same, but there's only so much that a cat can do.

Fucking _Rosalind._ Nobody asked for her.

"He wasn't out last night, he was sitting in like a saddo, waiting for a pizza with his mate," Mary reasonably points out. "And what's the worst that can happen if he is, nobody answers the door? You want him to fancy you, yeah?"

"I don't—" Lily starts, but immediately loses faith in her own lie, because she's far too pale to hide a sudden flush of her cheeks, and Mary's not stupid. "I'm just trying to avoid having a sexual harassment complaint lodged against me with the housing agency."

"He'd be a dick if he made a complaint, and if you pop over to his flat with warm bread you've baked _just_ for him—you fucking Stepford wife—he'll probably be so charmed that he'll forget he was ever angry in the first place."

"Charmed?"

"Or horny. Either way, you're golden"

"But I'm already wearing my pyjamas, and I don't want to change—"

"Don't change. Men _love_ girls in pyjamas."

"Do they?"

"They're soft, they're cosy, and they're easily removable," she says, as if it's a no-brainer. "Plus, it makes them think of taking you to bed, which is exactly what you—"

"I've already been in his bed."

"Maybe so," says Mary, and shrugs one shoulder. "But if you take my advice, and turn up on his doorstep in your comfy jim-jam shorts and your teeny-tiny tank top and hit him with those massive, 'I'm sorry' doe eyes of yours, I guarantee you—like, times a _million—_ he'll melt right there on the spot."

Lily fixes her with a look of disapproval, and Mary stares mutinously back.

She's quite cross with herself for seeing the appeal in this plan.

"You're only encouraging this because you think there's some sort of drama in it for you," she accuses her friend.

"True, but my shows have all ended and this is the _perfect_ start to a soppy rom-com," Mary admits, and crosses the room to stand directly in front of her, appraising her from head-to-toe with a sweeping, critical eye. "Let's see—"

"Mary—"

"Pull this out—" Mary hooks one finger beneath Lily's bra strap—she's wearing her best cherry red today—and slides it out from beneath her tank. "—and take _these_ down a little." Her shorts are tugged unceremoniously lower, until the top of her knickers are clearly visible above the waistband. "Hip-bones, see? And eye-contact, _always."_

"Could you refrain from pimping me out for the neighbour?"

"Could you refrain from feeling so ashamed of yourself for fancying the neighbour, just because you broke into his house and hit him with a shoe and _didn't_ nick the cat and take him home to me?"

"Aside from not stealing the cat, those are all excellent reasons to feel ashamed."

"You're neurotic," Mary counters, and fluffs the ends of Lily's hair. "Now go, and don't disturb my work, and remember what I said about eye contact."

Lily feels rather stubbornly inclined to argue Mary down.

The thing is, she's right about everything—except maybe her assertion that men like girls in pyjamas, because Lily has never seen proof of that—and it's fairly evident that she's got many more rebuttals up her sleeve, should any more arguments be slung her way.

Taking him the bread while it's fresh from the oven _would_ cast her in a better light.

Not that this is about making herself seem desirable. It's about making amends for her loutish behaviour. She's been wracked with guilt all day over the whole affair. Nobody deserves to be made feel uncomfortable in their own home.

But if he _liked_ her, rather than merely tolerating her presence…

Well. That would be nice, and it would certainly make both of their lives easier.

She gives it ten minutes—warm bread is a luxury, but scalding hot bread is best avoided, unless one enjoys having the skin stripped from their fingers and the taste-buds blistered from their tongues—deposits her offering on a plate and wraps it carefully in film, then it's out to the corridor she goes, plate in one hand and keys in the other, shivering slightly when she leaves the warmth of her flat behind, because the faux-wood floor is cold, her shorts are minuscule, and Mary refused to let her put on socks.

Perhaps he won't be in, she thinks, as she approaches the door, so she can leave the bread—and her apology—with his housemate, then scarper. Lily's not sure if she likes that idea or not. Neither is she sure if she is nervous or excited.

She take a deep, reassuring breath, and is raising her fist to knock when the door is pulled open from the inside—that keeps happening to her today—with some force, and she finds herself face-to-face with the very man she's been looking for.

Looking for _today,_ of course. Not in life, or anything. She doesn't have designs on him.

Even if the sight of him—shocked as he clearly is to see her standing on his threshold—makes a tingling kind of warmth sweep up through her body. He's so very tall and broad-shouldered, with eyes the most darling shade of hazel and hair a perfect whirlwind of ebony black, and it's instantly no mystery that her drunken-self tried it on with him last night.

The point of beer goggles, Lily has always assumed, is that they make a person seem _more_ attractive than they actually are, so that when one wakes up next to a relative fright after a night of drunken passion, one feels appropriately ashamed of one's taste when one is hammered beyond belief.

It's not supposed to go in the _opposite bleeding direction._

"Hi," she says immediately, and it's so _breathy,_ so obvious, and so trashy-romance-novel trite ("Hi," said the milkmaid, and gasped in awe, entranced by the way Rodolpho's white shirt billowed in the hot summer breeze, so he ripped off all her clothes and took her in the haystack) that she very much wishes she could slap herself across the face.

Or let him take her in a haystack. Either suits her needs.

"Hi," he replies. Then, instantly, "This is not your flat."

She laughs, or squeaks, or beeps like a broken computer—it's _some_ sort of sound, anyway, which could most credibly be likened to a laugh, even if it seems for a moment as if the ghost of a honking goose has embodied her soul. "Sorry," she says, and clears her throat. "I know that. Hello."

"Hello," he says again, though he still appears mildly startled. "Sorry, I just thought it best to...get that out there at the start. A bit of an issue previously...if you recall?"

"In—ah—in exquisitely painful detail, as it happens."

He says nothing, but his eyes travel downwards very fast, moving swiftly over her pyjamas, the plate in her hand, the stupid lacy band of the harlot-red knickers that peep boldly out from beneath her cotton shorts, and she wants to _throttle_ Mary. God knows what he's thinking of this shameless little display, though the look on his face seems to hint at a discomfort akin to chronic indigestion.

This is _awful._ He obviously wants her to bugger off, lest she do something nuts—like grab his arse, or rob him at gunpoint—and ruin his night for the second time in less than twenty-four hours.

"Listen," she begins. The sooner she makes her apology, the sooner she can get out of his gorgeously ruffled hair. "I talked to your housemate this morning, and he told me how angry you are about, you know—"

"He told you _what_?"

"Yeah, and—look, I totally get it, I was so awful, and you have _no_ idea how ashamed I am, so I just wanted to pop over and, erm, you know, apologise and—" She's talking very fast, but her guilt feels like an ugly, slimy creature that crawls along her skin, and she desperately needs—get it off, _get it off—_ to see it removed at once. "—and I just want you to know that behaviour like that is _not_ characteristic of me at all, really, I'm like—you know how there's always one really boring person who leaves the party early and misses all the fun stuff? Well, that's me, but like—look—" She huffs out a breath. "I'm not making sense, and you _so_ don't want to hear this, but I'm really, _really_ sorry, and I can't stress eno—"

"Wait a second. Slow down." He holds up a hand, waves it, looking perturbed. " _You're_ sorry?"

She blinks at him. "Yes?"

"You've nothing—" He breaks off, shakes his head. "I mean, yes, you broke in and threatened me a bunch, but _really_ , you were...clearly not yourself. I should have—I didn't realise you lived next door at first, otherwise I would have sent you right back. Ought have. I'm sorry."

Hold up a second. Why is _he_ sorry?

Moreover, why isn't he mad at _her?_

His easy acceptance (rejection?) of her apology should be making her feel better, but it has the opposite effect. Clearly, he's trying to appease her for the sake of politeness—his mother likely raised him to have manners—but she doesn't want to be excused if she doesn't deserve it. She shouldn't be allowed to get away with this so easily.

"But—but I used your toilet paper?" That's not a particularly strong start to her argument. "And, also, I'm pretty sure I kicked you at some point. And threw a shoe at your head."

"You really don't have to worry about the toilet paper," he insists with a rueful smile, one that only just quirks up at the corners of his lips. "And my shin is fine. Sort of. Purplish-green has always been one of my best colours. As for the—"

"I sexually harassed you," she blurts out, as if someone clapped her on the back and knocked the words from her mouth unexpectedly. She tosses an urgent glance at the door to her flat, lest Mary be poking her head out to eavesdrop. "I mean, I wouldn't have—but I was drunk, so…"

"No. Right. Of course not. You—" He stops, clears his throat. "I wouldn't...erm, term it as such, anyway. Harmless propositions, really. You were having a laugh. I felt harassed none at all. And I...well, you're not the one who ended up smothering someone else's mermaid bra, so if anyone were being accused…" He stops again. Sighs. "You're being very nice about this. You _are_ very nice. Likely why my cat likes you. Do you remember my cat? He's super cross I didn't let you hang around longer. Been a bit of a pill about it all day, actually."

Mary need not have insisted that she maintain eye contact, because she can't bring herself to look away.

He's _lovely._

A tall, dark, handsome _sweetheart_ who doesn't take advantage of drunk, half-naked women, and owns a cat.

A tall, dark, handsome sweetheart who doesn't take advantage of drunk, half-naked women, owns a cat, and is inexplicably willing to forgive her undeserving ass.

He thinks she's _very nice._

And if that's not doing strange things to the pace of her heart...

"I do remember your cat," she replies, with another stupid giggle—though this time, thankfully, she sounds more like a woman and less like a vengeful waterbird. "Algernon, right? And you're James—which is my very favourite name, by the way. I don't know if I mentioned that, but if I did, I was absolutely telling the truth."

"You very much mentioned it," he says. " _James and the Giant Peach_ , right?"

"Yes, that exactly." She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. "Sometimes I meet people named James who aren't very nice, and it really bloody pisses me off. It's like, they don't deserve it, you know? Their mothers should have named them Julian, or Todd, like my housemate's creepy ex."

"Todd _was_ the definition of creepy," he agrees readily. "Though I do hope you're not advocating for a name change here?"

"Oh, not at all!"

"Good," he says, looking pleased. "You _did_ think I was a murderer quite a few times, and I'm not sure murderers and favoured childhood protagonists quite add up, but I swear I'll strive to do justice by James. I'm not all bad. Mermaid bra debacles aside."

"The mermaid bra debacle was _my_ fault," she reminds him. "I'm the one who got smashed last night—I mean, it's not any kind of excuse, but I've been going through a _really_ shitty time of it, and I was out with a friend and he just kept buying me drink after drink after drink, and then the next thing I know, I'm lying in your bed with no top on." Her face must be glowing more brightly than a string of overzealous Christmas lights. "Which, actually, is quite a common outcome to excessive drinking, but the circumstances surrounding it are usually very different."

"If it's any consolation," he ventures, "you are the prettiest housebreaker I've ever had invade my flat. Also my _only_ housebreaker, but nevermind that." He pauses. "Though I am sorry you're having a shitty time of it. I'd housebreak too, likely, if I...you know. Was deeply miserable or something."

Prettiest, prettiest, _prettiest. Her._ She can breeze past the part where he's mentioned that he knows that she's unhappy. He doesn't want to hear about her problems, and she doesn't want to spill her guts to this nice man who somehow hasn't been convinced that she's insane. _Prettiest._

"Well, I'm happier now that I know you don't hate me—something your housemate was _very_ insistent about, by the way."

"Of course he was," James mutters under his breath, and then he gives her a we're-all-in-this-together sort of stare. "Something you ought to know if you're going to be living here—always assume Sirius is taking the mickey. It is his thing. He's endlessly entertained by your squirming. I've tried to break him of it, but I think it's a lifelong affliction. I'm not angry," he says again, and stresses it, very pointedly. "I thought _you'd_ be furious, honestly."

"No, of course not—I mean, I'm not too happy with your mate right now, but you were nothing but lovely. And respectful. And you didn't—not that you had any _reason_ to want to take advantage, but so many guys are creeps, you know? And I felt very comfortable." She swallows air. "Around you."

"Oh." He clears his throat again, lifts a hand to his hair, already sticking up in every which direction. His long fingers sift through the strands, the lucky things. "That's...that's good. I just...you know, I thought about it afterwards, and I should've caught on a bit quicker about why you were there—and I _did_ pull your hair and nearly yank your earring out. Sorry about that. I was only trying to get you dressed."

"I know!" she squeaks. "Because of the whole 'being respectful,' thing, which I really appreciate, and again, I'm really sorry that I put you in that situation, and that I kicked you, and all that stuff I said about—but anyway, that's why I rarely drink, because I turn into a flirty weirdo." She thrusts the plate towards his chest. "I baked you this, by the way."

"What?" He arches back, blinks at it. "You...baked? For me?"

"Yeah, it's my 'I'm sorry' banana bread, which is basically regular banana bread, but I listened to Coldplay while I made it, so, y'know." She shrugs, as if to say, 'what can you do?' "That's a bit of a downer."

He doesn't answer her, merely stares at the plate as if she's presented him with a complicated quadratic equation. Perhaps he thinks she poisoned it, as a jape, and that he'll be spending the night on the toilet if he trusts her enough to indulge in a slice or two.

"If you're not particularly partial to banana bread in general," she says gently, and makes her very best attempt at sweet and innocent—screw it, she's always being told that she looks like a doe-eyed Disney princess, so she might as well milk it for once. "Could you do me a kindness and pretend that you are? It'll break my heart if you hate it."

He gives a short laugh, still sounding a bit thrown. "Can't have that, can we?" He takes the plate slowly, carefully, like she's presented him with a crown jewel. "Though I happen to love banana bread. So your heart is in good hands in either case."

"I get the impression that you're quite capable of breaking lots of hearts if you wanted to, so I'm honoured, really, that you're paying such deference to mine."

"That's….no. You're _far_ too kind. But thanks," he says, and smiles at her. A proper one, with a lot of white teeth and happy charm. "With all these baked goods and profuse flatteries, I think I'm going to like being your neighbour."

"Well… brilliant. Great." She smiles shyly back. "And if you ever need a favour, like a cup of sugar, or you've run out of teabags, or, I dunno, if you fancy a bacon sandwich, I still feel like I owe you one and I'm pretty handy, so feel free to knock on my door whenever."

"Oh, are we knocking on each other's doors now?" He cocks an eyebrow. "I quite liked this trend of just stumbling in we had going."

"Yup," she says, and raps sharply on the frame of the door, which makes him laugh, and her stomach contract painfully. She's got a crush—a _crush,_ like a twelve-year-old girl—on her fucking neighbour. "I mean, you can stumble into my flat if you fancy it, but I can't guarantee that you'll be safe from my housemate and the insane soap opera plotline she's concocted for us both."

"Soap opera plotline?" His head tilts, intrigued. "Have I got an evil twin, then? Or have _you_ got the evil twin? One that housebreaks, while you sweep in afterward with baked goods?"

"Okay, well, _maybe_ it's more of a Harlequin romance plotline, since she's completely addicted to the Hallmark movie channel and has to make a drama out of everything, but don't tell her I said that."

He makes a quick zip across his lips with his finger. "Mum's the word."

"Mum is a good word. I happen to love mums, mine and others," she responds, with an apologetic smile, though whether she's still sorry about the housebreaking, or about the incomprehensibly dorky thing she just said, she isn't entirely sure. "Anyway…"

"Anyway."

"I should probably go back inside before I, you know—" She points in the direction of her door with both hands, perched on her tiptoes, swaying restlessly on the spot. "—fall in love with you, or something."

He makes a noise—strangled, garbled, a vague heralding to a similar sound he'd expelled yesterday inside the bathroom.

"Hah," she says flatly, a telling warmth blossoming across her chest. "That was a joke." She jerks her head towards her apartment. "Because Mary."

"Right," he finally says. His voice has definitely gone scratchier. "Mary. Hallmark. Can't...give them the satisfaction."

"Not in my delicate state," she agrees, and takes a step or two backwards, retreating to her own flat, where awaits her nosy housemate, but most importantly, the privacy one needs to replay a conversation over and over in one's head in order to best ascertain what it means when your sexy neighbour makes a _noise_ in response to your meagre attempts at flirting. "You take good care of my heart, now."

"Well, not _too_ well. Mary and all, you know." But he lifts the banana bread up, and looks a bit flushed and maybe even pleased. "Thanks for this. Again. Really. You didn't have to."

"I really, _really_ did," she insists, and raises a hand in farewell. "Night, James."

"Goodnight, Lily."

She stops at her door. "Did I tell you my name last night?"

He pauses, sort of squints at the question. "Well, technically you told _Sirius_ your name. And my name."

"It's good to know that I can nail a formal introduction even when I'm drunk," she observes. "Less good at goodbyes, though. I hear I tend to swipe pizza slices from unwitting victims."

"No one in this flat is unwitting, but consider it our first act of proper neighbourly camaraderie. And look"—he lifts the banana bread again—"promptly returned in kind. Well done us."

"Gold stars all round," she agrees, and unlocks her front door, with one last wave in his direction. "I'll see you around at some point, yeah?"

"Around. Yeah." He juggles the banana bread, waggles his fingers. "Goodnight. Neighbour."

With a fittingly goofy exchange of smiles and a blush she's sure he can't have missed, she retreats back inside and shuts the door behind her with a tad more force than she might normally expend. There's a loud, satisfying _click_ which assures her that it's firmly closed, and she's safe, he can't see her anymore, and she can smile like a loon as she likes without arousing any suspicion.

From him, at least. Mary comes schmoozing along with her wine in hand, one eyebrow coyly cocked in preparation for gossip, her expression suggesting that she already knows what Lily's going to say, that she _always_ knows, or that she was listening at the door with a glass tumbler.

Either way, she's not going to get what she wants.

Not tonight, at least. She's got a crush on her neighbour—a crush, she's such a _girl—_ and that's likely not a good thing, but she'll hear no analysis on the subject now. She has a conversation to relive, at least eight or nine more times before the night is out, and silly, giggly daydreams to engage in. Harsh reality is a foe that she will deal with in the morning, and Mary, who loves harsh reality like nobody's business, will have to take her place in line behind it.

"So?" says Mary, and folds one arm across her chest, swirling her wine with her free hand. "Did loverboy forgive you?"

"Mmhmm." Lily fixes her with the most serene of smiles. "Mary?"

"Yeah?"

"Darling Mary."

"What, Miss Bennett?"

With one dainty toss of her head, she pushes away from the door and glides breezily past her friend.

"Get your own bloody cat," she says.


	3. Much A-Nod About Nothing

**Chapter 3: Much A-Nod About Nothing**

If James had once been concerned that his rather potent preoccupation with a certain redheaded actress was occasionally skirting over the dubious line into minor obsession…what transpires over the fortnight following the incident with Beauty and her Banana Bread may very well mark him officially certifiable.

He has been broken.

Broken, by a woman, her earnest green eyes, her scarlet undergarments, and her apology baked goods.

Best luck fixing _that_ , Chris Martin.

It is a swift and precarious unhinging, perhaps made all the worse for the fact that James had left his office that first morning having mentally settled the matter into some semblance of order. Yes, Lily Evans—erstwhile untouchable subject of his misplaced affections—had moved into his building. Had, as a matter of point, moved in next _door_ , and promptly stumbled drunkenly into his flat, convening a less than ideal introduction. No, James does not date people who live in his building. Yes, this includes Lily Evans. But just _assuming_ a woman such as she was going to be immediately looking to date him was the highest order of ego and—moreover—he didn't know her well enough yet to be certain he'd want to date _her_ , either. Remus could murmur in dubious protest all he liked. Four trips to the theatre and nine hundred thousand telly and YouTube viewings did not an acquaintance make. The Dictate was a non-issue. What _remained_ an issue was that the woman now living in the flat three metres from his may very well be so cross and uncomfortable about their encounter that it'd make the living situation keenly unbearable, but James had already decided to pop over that very evening to apologise profusely. He'd defuse what discomfort he could, hoping she'd be of the mind to listen.

Except when he'd finally bolstered up the courage to make the arduous trek to her door…there she'd been, already on the other side of _his_ door. Looking, of all things, to apologise to _him_.

She'd baked. Banana bread. Hot, fragrant, "I'm sorry" Coldplay banana bread. Just for him.

She talks a lot when she's jittery, he notices immediately. When she blushes, it seems to start from her throat before sweeping up to her cheeks, a hearty pink colour. She's funny—possibly even funnier sober than drunk—and she was mildly concerned about having used his toilet paper, which is a detail James finds strangely charming. She'd remembered his cat. She flirts just enough throughout the entire conversation to have his heart thumping in time the whole way along—just enough that when she jokes that she'd best leave before she "falls in love with him or something," James is so sold on the aforementioned Hallmark of the moment that she has to _remind_ him it's a joke. Which is not mortifying at all.

That night's unmentionables are red. He knows this because he can see little peeks of them—the band of her knickers popping out of her shorts, the straps of her bra tangled with the other teeny-tiny straps of her equally teeny-tiny top. After the first initial sweep of her person, he'd determinedly kept his gaze fixed on her face, lest she catch him ogling. She was clearly on her way to bed, and James is a pervert for thinking…quite a bit about that. Every night. Every morning. Basically, all the time.

He tells her he's going to like being her neighbour, but that might be a lie. In a hundred different ways, his life would be _infinitely_ simpler if she was not, in fact, his neighbour.

James is smitten.

He _knows_ he is, in every strong, foolish, giddy way the emotion presents itself.

It has been a long while since he's felt like that.

He's not sure it's _ever_ been quite like this, honestly.

It doesn't matter. He hasn't even known her properly, collectively, more than an hour. It's overblown attraction, tied up with his actress-fantasy conundrum come to life, and a basic human appreciation that she's funny and kind and can keep anyone on their toes. He's gotten himself into trouble by jumping into things too quickly before. There is more at stake here than just disappointment that a relationship won't take off the way he'd like. He needs to be incredibly mindful of that. Of all of it.

He needs to slow down.

He needs to be reasonable.

He needs….not to find her the next morning as he's leaving the flat to grab some breakfast, arguing adorably with her bicycle at the top of the stairs.

"I will throw you on the scrapheap," is what he hears first, the firm threat echoing down the otherwise empty corridor. He comes to a sudden halt just inside his doorway, immediately spotting her kneeling beside the…well, it appears little more than a deathtrap on tyres to James, but he supposes it _is_ meant to be a bicycle. She's fiddling with something important-looking near the pedals, and James forces his gaze away from the tight curve of her bum in her clasping black trousers and stares at the ceiling instead.

He can still hear her grumbling.

"Is this really how you fancy our relationship ending? After all our time together, you rusting stack of garbage?" A short, breathy sigh. A near coo. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I like your rust just fine. But just for _once_ could your chain stay in place for a full day? I don't _want_ to die on the roads."

James lingers at his threshold, listening to this discussion with, he's certain, _not_ a melting feeling in his chest, but probably some new strain of indigestion. Though there is no arguing the source behind the vague unease brewing in his stomach.

She's not planning on _using_ that thing, is she? She won't even make it down the road before it collapses beneath her. People motored like maniacs around here. They already target cyclists like those multi-coloured ghouls after Pac-Man. No need to make it so bloody easy for them.

It's not his place to say anything, James knows instantly. He can't order her off the bicycle. He can't tell her to think of his poor nerves, like a fretting grandmum. Is there a way to causally offer her a ride? "Oh, hullo, neighbour, come jump in my car"? _That_ doesn't sound creepy at all. But she couldn't—

"Ah- _ha_!" She crows in victory, hopping to her feet. "Look at you! Thank you, my darling! Now, if we could just—down you go—good, good—"

Before James can even decide what might be done, she's already disappeared down the flight of steps, juggling the deathtrap through the narrow stairwell, telling it what a wonderful bicycle it is, how proud she is, how they're on their way, just a tad late, never fear, never fear.

James stews with irritation, with concern. Why doesn't she keep the bloody thing locked up outside, anyway? She's going to take a brutal tumble attempting to maneuver the thing down the stairs. There's a perfectly good bike rack just to the left of the building. London may be a city filled with petty thieves, but James feels rather confident saying the sticky-fingered masses will be content to leave this particular possession alone.

He can't follow her down the stairs. He'll do something stupid, like rush ahead to get the door, closing it forcefully upon the useless bicycle, watching in satisfaction as it instantly falls to pieces at the abuse, to which he'll offer a gallant apology and an immediate offer to replace her damaged transportation with another—newer, safer—model.

Or…maybe he can speed down now, spot which direction she's going, follow her in his car? Just to make sure she—

Fucking hell. He is not following her in his _car._ That is how serial killer films start.

Grumbling beneath his breath, James makes the safest move, turning around and heading back into his flat.

…where he finds Sirius in the kitchen, poking at James's banana bread.

"Oi!" James grabs for the nearest object at hand—ah. A trainer. How fortuitous—and spikes it at Sirius's head. "Get your grubby hands off, you bloody leech!"

"Where did this come from?" Sirius asks, ducking to avoid the flying trainer, but otherwise undeterred. He lifts the cling film. "It smells good."

"Lift that another centimeter and I gut you," James warns, jabbing a threatening finger. "Ought to do it anyway, you miserable asshat."

"My, my. Prince Charming has awoken bright and chipper this morning, hasn't he?" Sirius's hands still toy far too close to the cling film for James's comfort. "What's got your knickers in a twist?"

"I'm angry," James replies flatly. "Don't you recognise it? Seem to be telling all sorts of people how awash in the emotion I am lately."

To Sirius's credit, he appears to understand immediately what James is referring to. _Not_ to his credit, he smirks like a smug git, rather than frowning in bashful shame.

"Ah." The smirk grows wider, sharper. "Had a chat with our new neighbour, have you?"

"Yes. Had a chat." James glares. "You had her so riled, she felt the need to make me _that_ —apology banana bread. What the fuck did you say to her?"

Sirius's gaze shifts back to the banana bread with a new, boyish light, and James gets ready to find something else to toss at him. Maybe one of the nearby butcher knives. Murder seems to be a growing theme around here, anyway.

"Can't quite recall. Does it matter?" Sirius asks, crossing his arms over his chest. "You were worried she'd be angry with you. I made it so she was overly ashamed instead. Her shame produced this bread. As such, reckon I deserve—oh, at least half the loaf. Let me just—"

James kicks Sirius in the shin, enjoying the resulting grunt of pain. As his mate howls in protest, James grabs the banana bread and storms into his room.

Where he sets it carefully down on his bedside table, right beside Lily's spangley shoe.

The spangley shoe James had forgotten to return to her.

Shit. He _swears_ that wasn't on purpose.

All the same, refusing to leave the flat at all on Monday seems the wisest course for him. Clearly, he can't be trusted out there. He has plenty of work to keep him busy, anyway. It's all going according to plan until late that next afternoon, as he's lying on his bed, passing through e-mails for the building, trying to resist cutting himself another slice of the delicious treat still perched beside him…when James begins humming absently along to "Careless Whisper." This, in general, is nothing unusual. "Careless Whisper" is James's favorite song. He's humming it nine times out of ten. What _is_ unusual is that the familiar saxophone riffs are not playing out of his own Spotify. Instead, the faint, melodic instrumental breakdown seems to be filtering in through the terribly thin wall behind James's head.

Someone in the next flat over is playing "Careless Whisper."

His _favourite_ song.

Sadly, James is _terribly_ well acquainted with exactly which bedroom in the next flat shares a wall with his. He'd spent nearly two years listening to the sounds of Uh-uh-yes-UH-AH-YES Todd pleasuring himself to loud, squawking, untimely completions, not to mention the long, deafening telephone conversations with some poor soul who _also_ got to listen to Todd's overzealous and utterly incorrect opinions on various cricket matches. The day Todd had officially vacated the flat was the day James had celebrated his liberation. Never again would he spend another evening with a pillow clamped to his ears, trying to drown out the sounds of Todd making love to himself.

Now, he gets "Careless Whisper" instead.

The new occupant of Masturbatory-Master-Todd's room is serenading James with 80s classics through the wall.

As George Michael croons so eloquently: though it's easy to pretend, James is not a fool.

He knows exactly who is on the other side of that wall.

Who lives, sleeps, and plays music, every day, mere centimetres away from where _he_ lives, sleeps, and plays music.

He shares a wall with her.

(And he is _not_ comforted by the evidence that she clearly survived the day on her perilous transport. Not at all.)

None of this gets any better as the days proceed. Through Tuesday and Wednesday, James begins rationing out his quickly-dwindling banana bread supply like a wartime mum with three hungry mouths to feed. The only hungry mouth is his—Sirius had quit trying to steal pieces when James had flavoured his morning Nespresso with vinegar instead of creamer in retaliation—but it's still disappearing all too quickly. He does _not_ feel like this baked good is some kind of tether to her, which is why he's grappling frantically to keep it longer. That would be nonsensical. It's just very, very good banana bread.

Day Five, James is lounging around the lobby common area, looking to escape his suffocating flat, when he spots Lily coming down the stairs. She's juggling with the deathtrap bicycle again, but she's chipper about it this morning, chatting animatedly with Next Door Mary. Her laugh is bright and musical. James closes his eyes to revel in it as she stops off at the mailboxes that line the left-most lobby wall. She waves off Next Door Mary, then twists in her mail key, pokes around in there, doesn't seem to find what she's looking for, and closes it up again. She never spots James from where he watches her like a dodgy stalker in one of the chairs by the elevators, just exits straight out the revolving door, and hopefully not straight into a traffic accident.

The next day, James brings a newspaper. He watches her from over the top of the morning headlines, resigned to have gone full-on creeper—with props—now.

It's the same quaint routine: down the stairs, bicycle burden along, stop at the mailboxes—poke, poke, sigh—then out the door.

She must be waiting for something to come through the post. She checks every day—cycles every day, too, and James has dreams now of dropping that hazardous, vile bike down a manhole, or of bribing Peter to don a ski mask and snatch it from her, of gallantly chasing after him, but oh _damn_ , it's gone, James feels _terrible_ for not catching the culprit, he'll _absolutely_ buy her in a new one in apology—but instead he just watches. He doesn't know where she goes off to every day—theatre rehearsal? A film set? A posh, studly boyfriend's house, who may _claim_ to love and care for her, but clearly is a liar or a miscreant, because no decent partner on the face of this earth would let her ride around on the deathtrap if he cared even a single whit about her life, happiness, and safety.

(James really, _really_ hates that bike.)

To make matters worse, she has the audacity to be a complete sweetheart as well, her good-will apparently not limited to apology banana bread and cat cuddling. She is naturally friendly, sharing quick smiles and bright hullos with the other tenants when their paths cross, even distracts wee baby Neville as Frank Longbottom digs through the nappy bag in search of his son's favourite toy during a frazzled parental moment just outside the revolving door.

On Day Seven, there's another woman lingering in the lobby, dressed to the nines in some kind of glittery dress and sky-high heels. Seeing how it is not a minute past nine a.m., it is quite clear she's escaping from an evening spent somewhere she hadn't exactly planned (if James had to guess, she's likely a guest of one of the Prewett twins from the second floor. They were always bringing and abandoning pretty girls in the lobby). Glitter Girl seems fine, mostly just looks knackered, but there must be something wrong with her zip because she clutches the side of her dress with a firm fist as she ambles around the lobby, hair hanging around her face, messing with her phone, likely waiting for her cab to arrive.

James doesn't confront the girl, but when Lily Evans comes down the stairs—bloody bike juggling, long breath, mailbox stop, poke, sigh, close—she spots the girl as well, and gives a sympathetic cringe.

"Do you need help with that?" she asks kindly, and wiggles a finger at the dress. "I think I've got...in my bag here...ah-ha! A pin. Do you want me to…?"

"Oh my god, yes, please, _thank you._ " Glitter Girl rushes over, the relief evident in her voice. "The zip popped and I'm in such a tizz. Could you…?"

"Say no more." Lily bends slightly as she joins the other girl's hands at the side of the dress. She squints a bit, lips pursed in concentration, and attempts to rig the dress zip into compliance. "Just have to...there. That should do it."

"Oh, you're a _lifesaver_. Thank you so much!" Glitter Girl grips Lily's hands in thanks. "I had nightmares of accidentally flashing strangers on the street."

"Well. Now you'll only flash strangers on purpose." Lily grins. "Good now?"

"Yes. Fine. I'm just waiting for my cab." Glitter Girl lifts her mobile. "Just hoping this doesn't die in the meantime."

"Do you want me to pop back upstairs for a charger? My flat's only on the third floor—"

"Oh, no. It's fine. My cab should be here any sec."

"Sure? I could dawdle with you, just in case—"

"No, no. You've been such a help already—"

They go back and forth like that a few times—I will help; no no no, you're too kind—but somehow Lily gets her way and the two are still chatting absently about _Riverdale_ and what an utterly glorious shitshow it's become when Glitter Girl's cab finally arrives and out they both go.

Lily Evans: Death-Defying Cyclist, Saviour of Damsels in Distress.

If James were the Disney princess, this is the point where he'd clasp his hands together, tuck them neatly beneath his chin, and give a lovestruck twirl.

Instead, he slinks back upstairs and finishes off the last of his bread, brooding in anguish.

On the morning of Day Eight, the impossible occurs: Lily does not come down the stairs. She does not battle with her bicycle, she does not check her mailbox, she does not shoot her jaunty smiles at everyone but him. James sits in the lobby for near three hours, and she never arrives.

The level to which this ordinary miss leaves him feeling like something insurmountable has been stolen from him is…preposterously ludicrous.

This is not normal.

This is not fine.

This requires...some thought.

So James spends the remainder of Day Eight _thinking,_ and this is what he comes up with:

The Sasha Dictate had found its conception because Sasha had been, frankly, a bit of a terror. Because James was young, and he was stupid, but he had also accrued some heavy responsibility atop his lanky shoulders, and he'd quickly learned those few things should avoid clashing at all possible points. In a quick and simple solution, he had decided never to date anyone in his building again...but wasn't it possible that the _true_ issue was not necessarily that James should _never_ date someone in his building, but rather, that if he ever _did_ contemplate such a questionable breach of conduct again, he should be certain that he knew that person well enough to decently predict any possible repercussions, good or bad?

If James has taken the time to get to know Sasha on more than just the most cursory of levels before jumping into a relationship with her, there's a very high possibility he'd have spotted some warning signs that their compatibility was less than ideal. Sasha was a student, she still relished in the drama of every situation, and she'd come from a background where near no one in her life had ever told her "no." James himself was a coddled, privileged ponce, but he had some ground beneath him, and Sasha had still been learning hers. That her impulses after the break-up had ranged everywhere from petty to childish to flagrantly irresponsible was not actually that surprising. James could have predicted that after six weeks of knowing her. But he hadn't taken those six weeks to get to know her. He'd barely taken six hours before he'd rang her up and set the whole thing in motion.

Clearly this preoccupation with Lily Evans was not going to fizzle out casually on its own. After eight days, all James had managed to do was make himself look like more of a lunatic. It was still very much the case that no one was _saying_ Lily Evans would want to date him, or that he would _absolutely_ want to date her...but was there _really_ an issue with getting to know her a bit better so the pair of them had a chance to test a few theories? She certainly hadn't seemed to _hate_ him the other night. She'd had a good old laugh flirting with him on both occasions that they'd met. Maybe that was just her personality, but James simply didn't know her well enough yet to determine that. What would be so wrong with getting to know her? Just to _see_? No expectations. No presumptions. Just...becoming further acquainted with his neighbour. A slow, friendly, neighbourly relationship.

Slow.

 _Neighbourly._

Surely there is nothing wrong with that?

He clings to this idea very tightly, this newfangled notion of getting to _know_ someone before declaring that you can never in your life have a relationship with them. James is not scraping the Dictate. He will perhaps be circumventing it, but in a way that will either validate or invalidate its core purpose, so isn't that just decent self-vetting?

James is allowed to fancy Lily Evans, allowed to get to know her.

He is _not_ , as of yet, allowed to date her, but he can make the slow progress of attempting to decide whether that kind of progression would be fruitful for either of them.

And in the meantime, he can quit _Rear Window_ -ing her like a psycho.

He can _talk_ to her instead.

It's a somewhat daunting prospect.

His Hitchcockian machinations have, if nothing else, gathered him a bit of knowledge about her schedule. With the exception of the dreaded Day Eight, Lily seems rather consistent in her morning routine. James briefly contemplates "running" into her on her way down the stairs one morning, offering to help carry the dodgy deathtrap to the lobby, but he frankly doesn't trust himself not to chuck the thing down the three flights and laugh in maniacal glee as it shatters into a thousand rusty pieces at the bottom. To avoid that (terribly justified) bit of insanity, he reckons it is better to casually greet her once she and her useless transport have officially reached ground.

In the way of usual numberly organization, Flats 308 and 309 not only have shared walls—they have kissing lobby mailboxes. With Lily's penchant for daily post checks, James can think of few more convenient ploys than a timely mailbox meet cute.

And this meet cute, as with many of the best, James decides, will begin with a friendly, opening Nod.

James has concocted a whole list of things he can speak to her about—how delicious her banana bread was, how grateful he is that she'd thought of him, how he still has her shoe (though its precise location in his flat at present is likely better left vague)—but these kinds of encounters need to be artfully eased into, and James can think of fewer things more artful than a good Nod.

He takes two entire days practicing the move in every available reflective surface.

The Nod _must_ be a top-bottom Nod, he decides immediately. The sort that begins with the chin up and slowly moves down, as opposed to one that begins with the chin down and quickly moves up. They are two _very different_ types of Nods, see, and James tried and tested them both before settling on the former. The latter, while perhaps more casual, had a certain air of arrogance about it, a sort of short dismissal of the moment— _alright, yeah?_ at best. James does not want _alright, yeah_. He wants Cary Elwes, "As you wish," top-bottom, set the birds singing, all that. Oh, he'll do it with less leery staring, of course, but the _undertone_ should still be the same. It's _subtle,_ the Cary Nod. Took Buttercup a million years to figure his game out, hadn't it? James wants that. A million years or so.

He won't full-on smile during the Nod, either. Full-on smiling just makes the whole thing look too eager, too desperate. He'd tried that one out on Sirius, and his mate was still eyeing him strangely two days later. Additional trial and error concludes that a genial lip quirk is much more effective—one side a bit higher than the other, no teeth, friendly eyes accompanying. It's a heady balance of interest and jovial charm.

Nod speed is important too—not too fast, but not too slow. James Goldilocks-es this until he finds the pace that seems _just right_. He might be giving himself whiplash with all the nodding he's doing, but better that than ending up sleeping in the wrong bed, so to speak.

(Not that James is thinking about her bed. Any bed. Neighbours getting to know one another do not think about beds. Even if said neighbour has already _been_ in his. That's not the point.)

James strives not to dwell too fully on how much time he's spent plotting this Nod. That is...incidental.

By Day Fourteen, these incidentals are settled, and James has his plan.

Around 9 a.m., James will make his way down to the lobby, taking up his familiar position by the lifts. When Lily eventually makes her way down the stairs with Deathtrap, James will push to his feet. As Lily does her usual—key in, poke, poke, sigh, close—James will amble up behind her. He will wait patiently, _clearly_ just lingering so he can check his mailbox, as well. Lily will turn and spot him there, and that's when James will unleash it—his Nod. Top-bottom. Lip quirk. Hullo there. Lily will smile back, as she does. She might even Nod back, because she is very cool and clever that way. Once the Nod has officially been wielded, James will say something glib and suave and casual—"I'd meant to tell you, your apology banana bread was beyond brilliant," etc. etc—and Lily will say thank you, and he will say you're welcome, and on they'll go, meet cute accomplished.

A slow, neighbourly meet cute.

Just so.

* * *

The building lobby is mostly empty when James finally makes his way down that morning, his stomach doing some strange, twisty dance he's never encountered before and is quite certain he doesn't like. He'd spent perhaps a _bit_ more time than he'd intended ironing his shirt—three or four times—and fixing his hair—seven or eight times—but it's still not far off his scheduled moment of Nod Commencement when the lift doors open and James strolls into the familiar common area.

The lobby _is_ mostly empty...save for Lily Evans, who is already at her mailbox, twisting in her key.

 _Shit._ James skitters to a halt, stomach dropping to his knees. Shit, shit, _shit._ What was she doing down here already? Fucking hell, he hadn't taken _that_ long with his hair, had he?

James's trainers squeak against the tiled floor as he rushes forward, heart leaping into his throat, hands fisted against his sides. It's fine. _Fine._ She's still here, at least. He hasn't missed his chance. He just needs...to get over there a bit faster.

Alright. Okay. He's behind her now. Maybe a bit more winded than he'd like, and there's definitely the beginnings of a cold sweat condensing along his hairline, but James knows how to rally when the moment calls for it. She's there. _There_. She hasn't finished her poking and sighing yet. He sucks in a quick breath, gets his game face on.

There's his cue—sigh, close.

She turns...

...and a gives a spooked jump back, blinking at him in surprise.

Surprise. Well, of _course_ she's surprised. He's snuck up behind her. She was hardly expecting that. What was _he_ expecting?

He may need to add a _bit_ more smile into his Nod now.

No problem. He's got improvisation down. All good, all good—

Almost as he'd practiced, then, with a bit more grin. Shoulders back. Head tip—up-down. As you wish. Excellent. Nailed it. Extra lip quirk. Still no teeth. He throws in a quick point to the mailboxes behind her— _yes, yes, just popping in here, too, thanks, neighbour_ —and Lily's shoulders lose some of their tension as she realises what he's about.

With her own little lip quirk, she Nods back.

A natural Nodder, of course. He never expected any less.

Look at this. Them. Nods all around. Victory! Success! That tiny hiccup in the beginning, yeah, but never mind that. Crisis averted. Exchanged Nods: check. Friendly smiles: check. Meet cute...nearly check. Now all he needs to do—

Wait a second.

Is she...

Shit, she's _leaving_?

Idiot, idiot, _idiot,_ James curses himself vehemently, watching her deftly slip past him with Deathtrap in tow. He'd waited too long to follow up. What the hell was a Nod without the conversation afterwards? He'd been so busy gawking at her and congratulating himself, he'd completely lapsed in the utterly vital second part of this. The _point_ of this— _talking_ to her. And now she's _leaving._

 _Say something!_ His brain is railing angrily. _Anything!_

GO.

"Banana bread!" he blurts. Or shouts. Shit, he has most definitely shouted it. She turns back around to face him, looking startled.

His intent had been to give her smitten heart palpitations, not a full-on heart attack.

Well done, Potter.

"Pardon?" she says.

He needs to fix this. "I—banana bread," he says again, softer this time. He coughs. Fidgets. _Bugger_. "Thank you. For the banana bread. I never said, but it was delicious. So...I wanted to say."

"Oh." She gives him a small, polite, back-away-from-the-scary-man-darling smile, with the slightest inkling of coldness in her tone of voice. "I'm really happy to hear it."

"I had to guard it from my housemate," he adds, trying not to panic at that bit of aloofness, striving to look as sane and benign as possible. "Kept trying to steal slices."

As he's talking, she glances briefly over her shoulder, shifts her weight from one foot to the other, balances the bike against her outer thigh...and seems to conclude that she will _not_ run screaming from the lunatic who crept up behind her while she was checking for her mail and yelled, "banana bread!" at her retreating back with all the smooth subtlety of an articulated lorry careening into a pylon.

Small favours.

"I hope that you didn't give him any," she says with another smile, one a little more readily given than the half-petrified offering that came before it. "Not that—I mean, I'm sure you love him dearly, but it _was_ just for you."

"Love has no place when there is banana bread at stake," James assures her, wanting to breathe out his sigh of relief, but he doesn't dare risk it. "I am the only one who indulged—well, and Algernon sometimes. But I don't suppose you'd mind that."

"Of course not. If I'd been in less of a panic over the whole thing I would have made him his own, cat-sized loaf."

"Well, anytime you're looking to offload loaves—cat-sized or otherwise—you have quite willing taste testers in 309." This is getting easier now—easy and fun, like it was before. Like he'd _hoped_ this would be from the start, before he's clumsily fumbled it and was forced to clumsily recover. "All gone now, I'm afraid. I rationed it out as long as I could, but all that's left is crumbs on a plate. _Your_ plate, actually. Suppose you'll fancy that back at some point?"

"I'd forgotten all about the plate, to be honest—though, actually, you _do_ still have my shoe, right?"

"Your shoe?" The one that has been sitting on James's bedside table for two weeks? Why, yes. He's familiar. "Er. Yes. I think. Must be around the flat...somewhere."

"Do you think you could hunt it down and drop it over to me before Sunday?" She toys absently with the end of her ponytail—her hair is so long that it trails easily over one shoulder. "Not to disturb any shoe-themed shrines you might have set up in my honour, but I need it for a dance thing."

"You do dance?" James asks, equal parts intrigued by this new revelation as he is desperate to get away from even the joking mention of shoes and shines. He's _certain_ the truth of his little bedside monument is shooting a telling flush into his face.

"I do," she admits, and points to a spot over her shoulder, as though to indicate some place beyond the confines of this building. "A friend of mine owns a dance academy in the city—dunno if you heard of it, it's called the Shacklebolt Academy, and it's actually pretty successful—anyway, I've been going for six years and every year they do this big showcase video for the internet, and every year I'm basically coerced into dancing in it, so I need the heels"—the lightest raspberry blush is creeping up along her throat—"for this...rumba thing I'm doing."

"Ah," James manages, but mostly he's thinking _rumba_ , and _dance videos on the internet. There are_ six years _worth of_ dance videos _on the internet._ "You dance in shoes that spikey?"

"Not usually, but the whole thing with, well, most of the Latin dances, is that it's meant to be"—she shrugs—"sexy, or whatever, and I think the shoes help with that, given that I've been reliably informed on more than one occasion that sexy isn't really something I can pull off."

James nearly chokes at that. "Sorry?"

"Yeah," she sighs, with a dry, self-deprecating laugh that barely leaves her chest. "I give off more of a dumb, naive, doe-eyed murder victim vibe, apparently."

Now James isn't certain whether to properly choke or to laugh uproariously.

"Whoever told you that," he tells her flatly, honestly, "is an idiot."

This surprises another laugh from her, bright-eyed and unexpectedly sweet. "You mean the murder victim thing, right?"

Well. In for a penny… "As someone who has spent a healthy bit of time with you both in and out of clothes, being accused of murder _and_ nearly _being_ murdered..." He tilts his head with a pointed stare. "I'm going to maintain that it's all a load of utter hogwash. Just one bloke's opinion, mind," he says. "Admittedly, I know pants about dance, or shoes, or even much about murder, much as you seemed to suspect otherwise."

The faint pink blush that had been slowly meandering along her throat has most _certainly_ filled out her cheeks now.

"I mean—" she begins, her eyes darting off to the side, perhaps a little flustered, and certainly more than a little pleased, if the smile she's trying to fight is any kind of tell. "I also thought that I was in _my own_ flat, so, yes, though there was a five-minute window in which I thought you might be a serial killer, my opinion of you has been reassessed since then."

"I do appreciate that," James answers, and adds a smile of his own too, because he can't _not_ add a smile. She makes him want to smile. They've got a groove with this now. "And I will find your shoe so you can dance. If nothing else, its prodigal return ought to get Sirius to quit with all the Cinderella jokes—sorry about that, by the way."

"Is that why he keeps calling me 'Cinders' and asking me if I've seen any mice around the place when I pass him on the stairs?" She laughs, again, and shortly. "I thought he was talking about an infestation, or something. He said the landlord refused to do anything about it."

"Merely an infestation of asshattery," James mutters, and reminds himself to buy more vinegar. "I suppose I best stop apologizing for him now, or it's all our conversations will ever be. He warrants a lot of apologies, Sirius does. And I muster up enough all on my own."

"Please _do_ stop," she agrees. "You're a very nice man, and ought not apologise for him at all. I'm not going to stop liking _you_ just because you live with a nutter. If anything, it gives you points for altruism."

Likes him. She _likes_ him. Something bright and happy blooms inside James's chest. He nearly puffs out with it. "That's very good to hear. I suppose I'll have to bring him along when I return your shoe to make his apologies himself. Save us both a bit of breath."

"Well, yeah, sure, though if you're bringing him along, can you bring Algernon, too?" she asks. "I know it's a bit unorthodox to take your _entire_ household with you to return a shoe, but if you want a reason to do it, we can always get a pizza and be the only four people in London who actually make an effort to get to know their neighbours."

Has she just...invited him to her flat? James blinks, retracks her words at rapid speed. Yes. That's what she's done. He may still need to stop and pinch himself, but this is definitely real. She's staring at him almost shyly, but certainly expectantly. It's a proper invitation. For _him_ —well, him, Sirius, and Algernon, but James is not going to be picky about being a mere one on a list.

"Five, including Algernon," he clarifies, for while Algernon may not quite qualify as _people_ , he's still certainly got paws in this game. "He's very neighbourly, too. Or—well, he seemed to be neighbourly with you, anyway. In general he's not a very good neighbour at all, unless you're feeding him. But that's what makes him cool and interesting. Like the old man who throws things at you when you step on his lawn. He's very hard to please." Bugger, he's rambling now. About his cat. She doesn't know Algernon well enough yet to realise how much he warrants this level of conversation. James rushes back on topic. "We should definitely get a pizza. We all like pizza."

"You know, two of Mary's favourite places just stopped delivering to the building for some reason," she tells him, through a giggle that appears to have been prompted by his mad, feline-fuelled rant, "but I managed to talk one of them into delivering to us. Because I'm kind of a big deal." She lifts her eyes skywards in a droll impression of conceit. "That was a joke, I'm really not. But you'll come, yeah? All of you?"

James nods, hoping she doesn't notice how he's nearly bouncing on his toes in eagerness. It's really too pathetic to acknowledge. "It's a near requirement now. If these pizza claims of yours are true, sounds as if Sirius may in fact owe you a second apology _and_ a thank you to boot."

"He does?" Her eyebrows travel upwards. "That's rather intriguing."

He likes that he's intrigued her. He wants to give himself a pat on the back and a chance to take a victory lap around the lobby for the accomplishment. He'll make her laugh with the tales of Sirius and his delivery antics, he decides, saving that story for later. For this meeting they now have planned, because she _likes_ him. And it's _neighbourly_ , amusing and intriguing women in your building.

"Tonight, then?" he asks, striving to sound casual in the question. "Or...tomorrow? I'm quite open, see, but Algernon's a very busy cat, and I'm sure you've got...loads of cycling to do. Or something. If that bike _does_ indeed cycle. I admit, I've eyed it a few times and had my doubts."

"I don't blame you, honestly," Lily owns, patting the saddle of the darned thing in a pitying sort of way. "I'm pretty sure I'm doomed to meet my end in a gory road-traffic collision before the year is out, but what can you do? The tables at my soul-destroying job aren't going to wait themselves."

Ah, so she's a waitress, too. That must be where she's off to every morning, after the open-poke-sigh-close. It's the endless plight of actresses in between roles, isn't it? No wonder she's got manners and friendliness down to a science. "Well, don't meet any gory end or soul destruction before I can return your belongings," he tells her. "If nothing else, do it for the dance, yeah?"

"I will do my absolute best to stay alive for you," she assures him, with an equally reassuring smile. "And the dance. And, yeah, come over tonight if—god, that sounds so licentious, 'come over tonight,' like I've got _plans_ or something. I promise I'm not trying to seduce you, and I do tend to keep my shirt _on_ in company, most nights."

James musters out a commiserating nod and a jovial laugh, but...licentious. An adjective he's grown terribly familiar with lately. But if he needs the reminder that any and all shirtless endeavours—any _plans_ , with licentious emphasis—are presently off the table, now at least she's given one. Not that he should _need_ the reminder. He's just getting to know her, after all, and he fears a serious inability to accomplish anything of the sort if her shirt were off.

"All I can ask is that you try," he concedes magnanimously. "With the aliveness and the clothing, that is. There are apparently a lot of sad bras in the world. A rising epidemic."

"Mary and I will be appropriately clothed, I promise," she says. "So, stop round at eight, yeah? Also clothed, preferably, though I know Algernon can't be helped, but he gets a pass."

"He's much obliged," James says, and he can't believe this is _happening_. "So...eight, then. Plate. Shoe. Clothes. Got it."

"Plate. Shoe. Clothes. Yourself—probably the most important bit, or nothing else will follow. Mary will jump at any excuse to make drinks, and I'll try to be charming, I guess."

 _Try_ to be charming. Ha. "I don't think you'll have to try that hard."

"Bring more of those compliments tonight and I'll love you forever," she tells him, and grabs the handlebar of her murderous bicycle. She turns it around, neatly adjusts the faded wicker basket that hangs precariously on the front, and shoots him one last smile. "See you later, then?"

"Later, then," he agrees, but though this has all gone so much better than he'd expected, so rife with proper, slow _neighbourliness_ , and ended with an equally neighbourly invite, and she'll love him _forever_ , hadn't you heard...fucking hell, the bike is _tormenting_ him. "Just...be careful, yeah? On the roads. People drive like bedlamites. Do...I mean, I could give you a ride if you'd like?"

She's on the verge of making her departure—that's all for now, conversation over, I must away and stare down death in the saddle of a rickety torture device—when he presents this offer, and she stops short, her eyes widening in surprise, the torture device in question knocking hard against her thigh.

Was that too much? It was likely too much. But the _deathtrap_ is too much for him, and he's helpless to pretend otherwise.

"Much more fun to be in the one _in_ the car mowing down the cyclists than _being_ the cyclist, you know?" he tries, throwing in a convincing smile.

"Are you really asking if—" she starts. "But—that's _so_ kind, but I couldn't put you out like that."

"I'm not put out at all!" James insists instantly, jolting with the mad realisation that she may actually agree to this. "Really. I was on my way out soon, anyway."

"But you must have other plans, surely? Work, or—and I mean, the restaurant I work at is in Angel, so that's right in the city, and—" She looks down at her bike, and sighs heavily. "Are you _sure?_ I'd feel terrible if I took you away from something."

The look on her face—guilt, resignation—makes it abundantly clear; he's not the only one who understands the danger she puts herself in on that thing, with its rusting frame and devil-may-care chain, which can't be trusted to stay in place even for the duration of one day. She may have had a near miss or two already—James's head can conjure up any number of precarious possibilities, and they all make him want to tear out his hair and find the nearest sledgehammer—but she's fighting his offer for the sake of politeness. He can tell she doesn't _want_ to say no.

"I am absolutely sure," he assures her firmly—will say it as many times as he needs to—and is very glad at how _neighbourly_ he's being. Because that's what this is. Being a good _neighbour._ Getting to know someone—slowly—through kind, life-saving gestures. "I work from home most days. You're taking me away from nothing. And Angel is just fine—have to grab something near there, anyway. So...I'll just grab my keys, then? Do you want to lock up your bike outside?"

"I'll—I mean—my lock is, um, elsewhere currently," she says, and sounds altogether weary at the thought of it, "so I'm at a bit of a loose end. I'll have to bring it back upstairs and then—well, I can't, because I need it to get home."

"Oh." There's a story there, surely, but James is not sure he should ask, and doesn't want her to retract any of this if he flusters her by prodding. "Well, we can just pop it in my trunk." He wants to offer her a ride home too—a ride every day, or a new bike, _please_ —but that is not slow and that is not neighbourly, and those are, after all, his focus words here. "Works just as well."

"You'll have junk in your trunk," she says, and snorts. "That was terrible. Sorry."

James cracks a smile. "You let me worry about the junk in my trunk. It'll be just fine." He backs away a step, then another. "Just wait here, all right? I'll grab my keys."

"The junk and I will wait," she agrees, and smiles sweetly back. "Thank you very much, really."

"Just trying to remain worthy of my name," James says, and feels the smile blooming wide on his face, too. He's worried she's going to change her mind. He's going to race up these steps like it's an Olympic trial. "Be right back."

She gives him one last nod, and when a few more lingering seconds confirm her feet are remaining on precious ground, James turns and sprints up the stairs.

He can't believe this has gone off so well, from near disaster to a neighbourly evening invite and—victory leap!—the opportunity to thwart Deathtrap for one more day. He'll have to put off that call he meant to make to the insurance company this morning, but he can do it when he returns from the city, or even later this afternoon. They're not going anywhere. He'll also have to text Sirius at some point to inform him of their new neighbourly plans, but James isn't concerned about that. Any opportunity Sirius sees to make himself a nuisance is happily embraced, and a night spent with James in the presence of Lily Evans screams his kind of deal. Which means James is going to have to give him a strong talking-to about proper decorum with new neighbours, which Sirius will promptly ignore, but at least he'll have tried.

He's to his flat in record time. James keeps his car keys on a little hook just inside the flat door, so it's no more than a few seconds' work to grab them and go. Before he darts back out the door, he takes a quick tick to check his reflection in the hallway mirror.

Still not too ugly. Excellent.

He gives his reflection a Nod—thanks kindly, Cary—and slams out the flat.

* * *

"Do I look okay?"

"You look great," says Mary absently, her upper body splayed across the kitchen counter like she thinks she is the courtesan Satine—wasting dismally, yet prettily, away from consumption—with her head propped up on her elbow and her eyes fixed pointedly at her laptop screen. "Buzzfeed says my ideal rom-com job is 'wedding planner.' What the fuck is up with that?"

Mary is talking out of her arse, unless she has been bitten by a radioactive spider and contracted X-ray vision, enabling her to see Lily's outfit through her LCD display—though, were Mary ever to develop superpowers, she'd bitch and moan about them so much that Lily would shortly find herself prepared to move home for the second time in a month, so the chances of this phenomenon having occurred are absolutely nil.

"Could you at least look at me before you venture an opinion?" Lily asks her. "That's just a suggestion, mind. Don't overexert yourself for my benefit."

She is standing in the open doorway that separates their kitchen from the hall, wrapped in a rose-patterned sundress that she tried on, hated, tore off, and returned to only after she'd cycled through a procession of other, less encouraging choices and accepted—in a moment of shame that will _never_ leave the circle of trust she has established with her bedroom mirror—that she might as well just own it, because the only way to recreate the unwavering self-confidence she possessed on the night she met her neighbour is to get rat-arsed on Mary's infamous homemade margaritas—infamous, Mary says, because the secret ingredient is _not_ love, rather a malicious desire to poison one's mates with More Tequila Than is Necessary.

She's decided to abstain from cocktails tonight.

There are reasons for this choice she's made, one pressing, one mild, though both are pretty solid. The latter takes the form of Kingsley Shacklebolt, who talked her into posing for some photos to advertise the academy—no airbrushing, he _swears—_ for which she needs to be up early tomorrow, and _of_ which, for once, she's rather grateful. He, after all, is the one who got her drunk in the first place. He is the reason why James's first memory of her will always involve her making a prize tit of herself in her Little Mermaid bra. He has a lot to make up for, in fact, so it's only fitting, now, that she use her booziest mate as an excuse to cling to sobriety tonight.

The other reason—the _pressing_ reason—is James.

James, and his cat, and his delinquent of a housemate, and their imminent presence in her home tonight.

Lily likes him. Very much.

She likes him a lot _more,_ upon reflection, than she believed she did this morning.

There, she's said it. Or thought it. Felt it.

Whatever.

It's _not_ a good idea to like him, though any half-baked fan of nineties-era sitcoms might naively disagree. On paper, it's a storybook deal—handsome neighbour boy, right next door, handily within reach for all and any itches that need scratching—and if Lily hadn't become so unfamiliar with the optimistic bent that defined the years of her later teens, she might just have believed it herself.

The reality of the thing is that he doesn't feel the same, or he does, and they date, and it all goes horribly wrong, forcing them into the world's most painful post-breakup dip; meeting unexpectedly by the mailboxes and launching into an awkward, tangled dance, attempting to side-step in the same direction with red-faced murmurs of, 'sorry,' and 'oh—er—ah,' and 'have a nice day,' a meeting made all the worse for the fact that she is a slouching, hungover mess, while he is practically glowing, tall and healthy and radiant as the sun; or desperately pounding the button for her floor in the hopes that the doors will close before he has a chance to step inside, which of course, they won't, resulting in a loaded, excruciating silence that stretches on and on until the doors spring open, and they pounce, desperate to escape, each shoulder-knocking the other like a pair of wobbling skittles; or her personal favourite, he meets another, better, prettier girl, and she's forced to listen to their raucous love-making—so much better than his last girlfriend!—through the party wall she knows they share.

Chandler and Monica, they are _not._

Lily's life is teetering delicately on the edge of a sharp, steep, woefully perilous drop to nowhere, and she's not really equipped to handle _feelings—_ and all the mad, frenetic, emotional irrationalities that come hand-in-hand with having a crush—at this very vital juncture.

She'd been absolutely _fine_ before this morning.

Fine, when she saw him skulking about downstairs last week, and would have been of a mind to say hello, but he looked away as soon as he saw her and determinedly avoided her eye until she and her bicycle took their leave.

Quite certainly fine, on every subsequent morning that saw her pass him by in the lobby—him loitering by the lifts with a newspaper in hand (as if anyone consumes print media nowadays), her battling with her bike to get it safely out the door—while he sat and ignored her with such doughty vigour that it almost felt as if he was venturing to the lobby with the sole intent to show her _just_ how unkindly he took to her presence, and how committed he was to pretending that she didn't exist.

Undoubtedly, doubly, supremely fine, was Lily, when she was forced to accept that their breezy, bantering, banana bread-centred exchange had not gone as well as she believed, because he was clearly uninterested in knowing her, and Sirius's jibes had been more of a truth than James had been too polite to admit.

But Lily wasn't of a mind to waste her precious time mulling over some guy, even if said guy has the most perfectly-formed mouth she's ever seen—top lip slightly bigger than the bottom, doesn't disappear a whit when he smiles, soft, kissable, biteable... _god—_ or how often she's thought about running her fingers through his dark, electrified hair. She had apologised, profusely, and he had accepted it, along with her banana bread—which smelled _delicious,_ she might have added—and after all that effort on her part to make amends, if he was going to be _that_ petty about it…

...well, that was his problem, not hers, and he wasn't who she'd thought he was at all. She could quite happily live, if living was without him—thanks a lot for nothing, Mariah.

It was his loss, anyway, because she was a _super_ person to befriend. Stupid boy. _Dishonest_ boy. Lily had been well on her way to forgetting her crush that morning, when she traipsed downstairs to find, for the tenth day in a row, that her new passport—which she'd ordered before she left her old flat, prompting several frantic calls to the passport office to double-check that yes, they had her new address, though still she fears that Severus has it in his spidery clutches—had not yet arrived.

But then James kind of…came at her from nowhere.

To offer his profuse compliments to her baking.

And...other things, it seemed. Including the vaguest indication that he may find her attractive.

Stupid boy. _Lovely_ boy.

Stupid girl, she is.

Lily had tried, for maybe half-a-minute, to remember that she wasn't best pleased with him for having blanked her so thoroughly—she's had more than enough experience with ghosting to last her for the rest of her life—but he was flustered, and nervous, and _charming,_ in an off-kilter, slightly manic kind of way which told her plainly that he'd never intended to slight her, and her ire proved itself a flighty mistress.

Off it had fluttered. Up, up, and away.

It wasn't fair. She hadn't been prepared for him at all, and he _caught_ her, unguarded and exposed, not near recovered enough from the sweet, shimmery newness of her rosebud-burgeoning feelings to write him coldly off.

He's dangerous, her neighbour. Comely and helpful and _dangerous,_ and totally unaware of the fact, which is the worst kind of hazard when a girl needs to be careful with her heart.

If he knew how she felt, how he affected her, and if he tried to use those feelings to his own advantage, Lily could resolve to dislike him for his conceit, but instead she is faced with kindness, and compliments, and an unexpected show of concern for her immediate physical safety. The idea that she might actually _use_ her rust-bucket of a bicycle as anything other than a comical prop seemed to render him distraught—if the panicked look in his eyes was any indication—and equally eager to dash to her rescue. His professed desire to see her safely to her destination was so earnestly expressed that she agreed to let him drive her to work, in some part, for the sake of _his_ peace of mind. She couldn't stomach the idea of leaving him to worry—and she's damned if that's not the _most_ worrying thing of all.

His car is one of those fancy types, packed to the brim with the latest gadgets, evidently new and plainly expensive, which begged the immediate question—trust fund baby, or extremely successful male escort?

He'd laughed quite a lot at that theory.

He hadn't confirmed or denied it, but he laughed, certainly, before explaining that he'd only bought the car because Sirius scratched the paintwork—by accident, his mate swears, and not because he'd had his heart set on it _—_ at the dealers, and telling her in no uncertain terms that she simply _must_ adjust the passenger seat to her specific preference. Her comfort was paramount, or didn't she know?

She _hopes_ he's not an escort. God knows, he's got the thoughtful, considerate, 'no, enough about me, tell me more about _yourself,'_ act down to a fine art—that's a thing that escorts _do,_ right?—and he's handsome enough to rake it in like autumn leaves.

She was mildly surprised by her own cheek in venturing the question in the first place.

Only mildly, though.

There's something _different_ about him—or about her, when she's around him—something firm and comfortable that springs from instinct alone, why _yes,_ she _can_ say that thing, make that joke, flirt a little here, and he won't mind at all. There are no awkward gaps or empty, silent spaces, wherein she has to scrabble frantically to the far recesses of her mind—like a claw machine at a dodgy arcade, trying _so_ hard, but destined to fail—to find something, _anything,_ to say. The words just come to her, up and out, with very little effort, which is _staggering,_ considering just how nervous and fluttery she finds herself growing in his presence, then he takes them in and returns her serve with equal—sometimes better—fervour.

He's quite articulate, this man. He'd told her funny stories about his mates while he was driving her to work, asked her questions about the restaurant—if she likes working there, what the food is like, if the customers treat her nicely—and her dance classes, which brought them on to music, and a very brief argument over who has better taste (she won, but by a narrow margin, as his 80s favourites playlist was missing one or two must-haves).

It was the best thirty minutes of her entire week.

They've clicked, she thinks. Just one of those things. It happened with Mary, on the day they met, and Kingsley after her, and this instant symbiosis with James-the-Handsome-Neighbour should really be just the same, in theory.

Except she's never been attracted to Mary or Kingsley, and, well…

Careful. That's the word. She must be very careful.

Equally as important, she _must_ know if this rose-print dress is working.

Mary's eyes flick up from her laptop. "Yes."

"Yes what?"

"Yes, you look very nice."

"If you can't be bothered to be honest—"

"No, I mean it!" Mary cries, laughing, half-rising from her stool when Lily turns as if to leave. "You look so pretty, darling. I _love_ your dress."

Lily would very much like to be haughty about it, gather her gauzy skirt and march off to her room—formerly Mary-and-Todd's room, then only-Todd's, after his woefully ill-concealed affair with Cricket-Club-Janine—but she's operating from a very weakened position. She _needs_ her friend, to validate, to soothe, to rein her in if she looks to be considering an unwise course of action, like trying to snog her neighbour.

"You don't think it's too _Little House on the Prairie,_ though?" she asks fretfully, swirling the skirt around her legs. "I feel like I should be frolicking about in a meadow."

"If Melissa Gilbert had worn a dress with a cut-out waist, they would have locked her in the attic." Mary slaps the lid of her laptop down and smiles with playful intent. "Are you going to sleep with him?"

Perhaps Mary _isn't_ all that well equipped to rein her in.

"I am not," she haughtily replies.

"But you _want_ to."

"It's far too early to know if that's true."

"Fair enough, that's very sensible of you," says Mary, and straightens up. The tequila is out, the blender on standby, and a couple of limes have been quartered and placed at the ready, so she's been killing time on the internet—having a grand-old-laugh discovering the identity of her Marvel soulmate, or what flavour of Dorito she best resembles, or whatever it is that Buzzfeed quizzes aim to prove these days—while Lily worried over clothes and chided herself in the mirror. "But _he_ wants to sleep with you."

Lily does not appreciate this inference.

Mary thinks she's funny, but alas, she is not.

Should their guests show up at this very minute, she will be forced to answer the door with a bright red face and neck which, really, will offer no support to her newest role of Cool, Sexy Neighbour Girl Who James Should Definitely Fancy, a role that has already induced a more-than-reasonable amount of stage fright. She feels, even now, like a colony of vengeful mice are chewing their way through the collection of frayed cables that currently comprises her entire nervous system.

Murder victims are so much easier to play, and crushes don't come with an accompanying script.

"How can you _possibly_ believe that," she demands to know, with her hands on her hips to show she means business, "when you've never spoken to the guy?"

"How can you possibly _not_ believe that," Mary counters, mimicking her stance, "when you've spoken to the guy several times?"

"Because I don't assume that everyone wants to sleep with me?"

"Okay, sure," says Mary dryly. "'Twas the goodness of his heart that compelled him to entice you into his car, not the boner in his pants."

"He didn't have a boner," Lily immediately retorts.

"How'd you know that?"

"Because I looked," she admits, and Mary lets out a whip-crack laugh. "Well, grazed, really. With my eyes. Just a couple of times."

"Got to see if everything's in order, I suppose."

"It was a purely scientific interest."

"Who wants to be surprised by an abnormal curvature?" Mary agrees, grinning widely, just as a knock sounds on the front door, and a hive of buzzing bees erupts painfully in the pit of Lily's stomach, swiftly dominating the mice into submission. "Go and greet our esteemed guests, Pollyanna. I'll sleep with my earplugs _in_ tonight."

"Not a _word_ from you about boners, you hear?" Lily warns, and darts off.

To the door.

Behind which stands the object of her unexpectedly potent affections.

And his housemate.

And his cat.

The _cat._ Of course! Algernon _likes_ her. Algernon is _on her side._ Algernon would pick her over Coconut-Water-Rosalind and her innumerable Instagram filters any day of the week. Algernon will have her back.

The cat is the thing, the key to all of this. Watch her embody the role of Cool, Sexy Neighbour Girl (Who James Should Definitely Fancy) like a consummate professional. Live and up close for one night only. She'll give an Olivier-worthy performance.

Lily fluffs her hair, smooths down her dress, pulls open the door and focuses, immediately, on Algernon, who sits squarely, snugly, unhappily, in the crook of his human master's right arm.

His human, who is _far less important_ than he, according to Cool, Sexy Neighbour Girl (WJSDF), who is much too Cool, and Sexy, and altogether concerned with the cat, to pay much deference to a mere mortal man.

"Hello, handsome!" she blithely cries.

James's eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline—a thing she notices whilst pretending _not_ to notice—his mouth falling open in mild surprise. "Hello—?"

"Come _here,_ you darling," she implores, cutting James off as she swoops towards him to snatch Algernon from his arms—he lets the cat go without much argument, a plastic carrier bag swinging from his other arm as he reluctantly hands him over—and cradle him lovingly in her own. The aforementioned darling huddles into her embrace with a satisfied _purr,_ tucking his head so snugly against her neck, his plump, fluffy body vibrating against her chest. Her heart just _melts_ at the feel of him, soft and warm and full of affection for her, her, _her._ "I missedyou _so much—_ oh!" She lands a kiss between his pointed ears. "Together at last, my little love."

Sirius snorts in amusement. Or derision. He seems like the type to take pleasure in poking fun at the follies of others, whilst never paying much mind to what surely must be an endless list of his own little absurdities. It doesn't matter a whit to Lily, either way. One does not care much for the opinions of mischief-making neighbours when one is cuddling the noblest feline in all of London.

She removes one hand from Algernon's pelt just long enough to give the boys a quick wave. "Hi, guys."

Sirius leans against the doorjamb, looking drolly beleaguered. "The cat gets 'hello, handsome' and 'together at last' and we get 'hi, guys'?"

"I'm _so_ sorry, where are my manners?" she quickly retorts, with an exaggerated show of contrition in her tone, then lifts her gaze from the cat to flash her brightest possible smile at James, who, to be fair, is looking utterly _edible_ in a button-down and jeans. His hair alone deserves its own entry in the Guinness Book of Records for aerodynamic excellence, not to mention all the secret, lustful stirrings it inspires. "Hello, handsome."

He takes in the amended greeting with the briefest of surprised twitches, and then a very compelling lift of his lips.

"And hello, you shit-stirring, cretinous little stooge," she adds to Sirius, who instantly appears to love this affectation. She takes a couple of backwards steps. "Come on in, both of you. You can leave that bag on the table."

Sirius looks victoriously at James, who has crossed into the flat ahead of him and is setting the carrier bag that contains her shoe and—she thinks—a plate, onto the small wooden side-table where Lily and Mary normally keep their keys and letters. "I may be the stooge, but you still got handsome _second_. And that, after he spends four hours getting dressed for this."

"I did not spend four hours getting dressed for this," James objects, shooting Lily a commiserating stare, but there is a slight tightening of his jaw that could hint at contradictory embarrassment. "Clothes being a predetermined requirement of the occasion, I just made sure they were present. Though I feel like it should be noted that you _did_ greet the only naked guest here first."

"Politeness dictated it," she explains, and turns on her heel, still holding the cat, to move towards the kitchen. "Mary and I subscribe to a certain social hierarchy in this flat, staggering in its simplicity but utterly unbreakable."

"What does this social hierarchy dictate?" says Sirius.

"It's quite simple, really. Cats first—"

"—and everyone else can get fucked?" Sirius finishes.

"No, that addendum only applies to you." She stops walking and twirls around on her toes to face them, Algernon purring his encouragement in her ear—Cool and Sexy, girl, and don't be obvious, _anything_ but obvious—her hair fanning out behind her as it catches the air. "Anyway, I don't see either of you jumping to compliment _me,_ and I _did_ take my time getting dressed for this."

"Good for you," Sirius says, and pulls open the hall cupboard door without ceremony, poking his head inside. "Of course, if it wasn't four hours, you've still lost this race."

"It _wasn't—"_ James begins, with an accompanying huff of exasperation, but he cuts himself off, seeming to think better of the continued denial. Instead, he looks to Lily, his expression softening, and smiles at her as he says, "You look very nice, too."

 _Very_ nice. Hah! Mary's earlier assertion was stunningly correct; Lily is one well-made margarita away from giving it all up on a plate, and all it took was _very nice._

It's a good thing she isn't drinking, for all their sakes, but especially that of her dignity.

In her defence, as infinitesimal as such a defence may be, James really shouldn't look at her like that, with the soft, slow smiles and the romantic-night-beneath-the-stars warmth in his gorgeous hazel eyes. Nobody else looks at her like that, _ever—_ not even Sev, who swayed towards a simpering, slavish devotion in his unrestrained staring—what right does James have to break the mold?

"Ta very much," she says lightly.

 _Nicely done, Evans. Cool and Sexy. Sexy and Cool._

"Though, if you're not careful," James adds, "Algernon is going to shed all over that pretty dress."

"It's only hair, and it's just a dress," she cheerfully informs him, "either way, it's not worth fretting about. Come and meet my housemate."

She spins around and glides into the kitchen, muttering asides of adoration to the cat all the way—Algernon is a marvellous creature, really. Soft. Sympathetic. Hides her blushing neck with his bright orange fur—and Mary, who is rubbing the rim of a glass with a wedge of lime, stops what she's doing at once.

"Finally!" she cries, and makes a beeline for the two of them, while James ambles in behind her—leaving Sirius to explore the various nooks and crannies of the hall. "I _knew_ I had a good reason to ask you to move in."

"So you weren't rescuing me from Sev?"

"That too, but mostly cat."

"Cool. Love you, too."

Mary shrugs it off with flippant laugh and reaches out to ruffle Algernon's fur, but the cat scrabbles away from her touch immediately, wiggling in Lily's arms as if desperate to escape.

"It's okay," Lily assures him. "It's okay." She steps away from Mary, and Algernon relaxes into her embrace once more. "All good now, see?"

"Bless his heart," says Mary. "He's being shy."

"It's not shy," James informs her, wincing. "Shocking as it may seem—and as the present tableau may contradict—he's actually quite...difficult to befriend. He's got very particular standards. I think she may have the ginger power on her side."

"Don't take offense," pipes in Sirius from the hall. "They're an unpredictable lot, the gingers."

"Yes, the gingers in this room are the real problem," James comments dryly. He gives a friendly wave to Mary. "In any case, I'm James. And I have very low standards. Nice to properly meet you."

"Yeah, sure," says Mary, waving carelessly back. She frowns at Lily. "Low standards, he says. That explains why _he's_ making eyes at you"—it is most unfortunate that Lily and James are looking directly at one another as Mary fishes that particular accusation out of her pond, and even _less_ fortunate that Lily's face flares up immediately, like a poppy field in bloom—"but why is _the cat_ so bloody smitten?"

"You heard him, it's a ginger thing," she coolly counters, intent upon the swift expedition of a change of subject. "Though, I _would_ like to know what evidence there is to support this claim that we're all so unpredictable."

"Besides you getting drunk and breaking into their flat?"

"Obviously, besides that." She looks pointedly at Sirius, who has chosen this moment to wander in from the hall. "Well?"

"I just saw what kind of things you keep in your cupboards," is his reply. "I call at _least_ half that unpredictable."

"Like what, the cleaning supplies?" says Mary, and rolls her eyes. "Trust a _man_ to find that unpredictable. Which of you is the one who sings dodgy pop songs at the top of his lungs at all hours of the morning?"

 _"Dodgy?"_ Sirius reels back, offended. "I'll have you know that my catalogue is a prime, curated list of perfection. I've spent _years_ on those selections."

"He puts on Spotify," James tattles. "The 'Songs to Sing in the Shower' playlist."

"You were right," says Mary to Lily. "You guy _is_ the better one." She turns away from the party and strolls back to her previous spot, where she has assembled a host of goodies around the blender. "Are you lot thirsty? I'm making margaritas—"

"—and I'm not partaking," Lily immediately cuts in, and kisses Algernon again. 'Your guy,' indeed. Mary is no longer the teenage menace who would point fingers in people's faces with an accompanying cry of, 'my mate _fancies_ you,' but she gets her digs in when she can, and she's stuck them both with her less-than-subtle opinion within the first two minutes. "I'm strictly on tea tonight, though you guys shouldn't let that stop you."

"Don't hold back on our account," James tells her. "Look, you're _already_ in the correct flat. Can't mess that one up, can you?"

"Miss Hawaiian Tropic has to get up early tomorrow morning," says Mary in amusement, as if that's not _exactly_ what Lily didn't want to discuss. She would have thought that her friend would be kind and sensible enough to steer clear of any particularly shameful topics—the boner embargo notwithstanding.

She rounds on her mate at once. _"Mary."_

"What?"

"Can you not?"

"Can you not what?" says Mary innocently. "Don't they know that you're a swimsuit model?"

"I am _not_ a swimsuit model."

"The Asos website would beg to differ."

"The Asos website—" she begins, but stops, lets out a weighty sigh, and turns her back on her friend, throwing James a look reminiscent of the kind her mother used to throw her father when Petunia flew into rages over whatever expensive toy she hadn't gotten that all her friends had. She is going to _crucify_ Mary later. "I'm not a swimsuit model and it's so not a big deal, but I _do_ have to get up early tomorrow to have some photos taken."

"When I was three," James says, looking happily amused and yet fully commiserating, "my mum forced me into hair care adverts for my dad's company. So from one model to another"—he waves a hand, so put-upon—"bothersome call times, right?"

His _dad's_ company, he says, oh so casual.

He's a trust fund baby.

A trust fund baby, which means he most likely _doesn't_ spend his evenings escorting wealthy, thirty-five-year-old divorcées to charity events, expertly playing the part of the toyboy lover, then shagging them 'off-the-clock' in the back of an S-Class Mercedes.

She _knew_ it.

"Right!" she agrees, and smiles gratefully at him, though she's not sure how much of her appreciation translates, for Algernon, whilst beautiful and snuggly and generally magnificent, is in fact _so_ fluffy that said fluff is forming a kind of barrier between the outside world and at least half of her face. "Mary, where's the pizza menu?"

"I left it in your bedroom when I borrowed your curling iron."

"Cool, I'll go and get it."

She sets Algernon down on the floor to step away, and it becomes immediately clear that the cat does not wish to be parted from her, for he follows her at once, and with unerring speed, almost tripping her up in his haste to rub his body against her bare legs.

"Um," she says.

"You've been adopted," Mary remarks, watching Algernon from beneath furrowed brows. "Congrats on the new arrival."

James eyes this somewhat incredulously, too. "Are you sure you don't have...bacon in your pockets or something?" The cat weaves between Lily's legs. "He is never like this."

"Algernon," Sirius calls, strolling over to join Mary at the kitchen island, his eyes already on the blender full of margarita mix. "Let Mummy and Daddy go off in the bedroom alone, please."

Mary barks out a laugh. "Nice one."

"Oh, I've been preparing," Sirius says. "I could do this all night."

"You couldn't have asked for a better setup, really," Mary says, with a careless wave to Lily, who steps away from Algernon, again—face trained down to the floor because she is _certainly_ redder than her own hair—only to be followed, nuzzled, and generally adored by the cat, _again._ "I mean, her wandering into your flat smashed, taking off her top, and so forth. It's _excellent_ fodder for a best man speech."

"Is it ever," agrees Sirius readily. "I've worked up a draft or two—"

James leans close to Lily's ear. "Your mate is egging on _my_ mate in his delusions, and I have a feeling it's not going to end the better for either of us."

Delusions.

Huh.

"I told you, she's addicted to drama," she mutters back, but to Mary and Sirius she adds, more loudly, "I'm going to get the menu now. Should you both care to start acting your ages while I'm gone, it'd be very much appreciated."

Mary snorts, and leans over to tell Sirius something in an inaudible tone, so Lily backs out of the room before either of them can come up with another wisecrack pertaining to the—admittedly comical—way in which she and James met, and the many potential rom-com scenarios into which it could neatly be tied. They're not thirteen-years-old any longer, so she doesn't have to worry that Mary will reveal the truth of Lily's anvil-sized crush, but she'd rather be out of the way while her mate gets it all out of her system.

She'll tire of the childish teasing shortly, even if Sirius won't.

The cat, undaunted by her exit, follows her along the hall, sticking as close to her feet as possible.

"You're the fluffiest trip-hazard I've ever seen," she tells him, to which he lovingly prods her calf with his head.

"Algernon, can you just let her _be_ —" James says in exasperation, but Lily notices he trails after the cat, who is still trailing after _her_...

...straight into her bedroom.

James is in her bedroom.

It's a scenario she's already pictured in her head a few times, admittedly, but the circumstances surrounding the encounters in her daydreams are often very different to this.

More kissing, less cat. Precious little clothing.

She's immediately grateful to herself for being conscientious in her cleaning schedule, and especially to her this-morning self for making her bed up neatly—the only potentially embarrassing item on display is a powder blue bra hanging over a chair, and James has already seen her _wearing_ her purple one, so that's no major issue—not that he'll be venturing near her bed. Not that she was expecting any of her guests to set a foot—or paw—inside her room in the first place.

Well, certainly not Sirius, anyway.

Maybe Algernon.

She is _not_ having ideas, nor is she hatching plans, schemes, or any other kind of strategies which pertain to keeping him in her room and divesting him of all his clothes. They're going to eat some pizza, drink margaritas, watch some crappy romantic comedy that Mary will insist upon—possibly—and then he's going to go home.

She is _not_ interested in seducing her neighbour because she's an intelligent woman who is aware that She + Him x Sex = Potential Recipe for Disaster and Awkwardness, and she must learn to cheerfully resign herself to enjoying the many aesthetic delights he has to offer in a dignified, self-respecting silence.

There's a reason why Maths was her least favourite subject at school.

"Don't worry about the cat," she says, and sits down lightly on her bed. Algernon immediately leaps into her lap and settles down there, which would fail to elicit a smile only from a person with a heart made of stone. "I really don't mind him following." She nods down at the cat, and then looks up at James. "He seems to have picked it up from watching you follow _him_ around."

"He often needs following," James insists, but now he seems to realise what he's done—come into her bedroom, uninvited—and he looks a bit bashful about it. "I suppose I'll just claim I'm a very petty person, so when you invaded my room, I decided I must invade yours in return?"

"That's your story, is it?"

He runs a hand through his hair, shrugs. "Alternatively, I'm being very neighbourly, and have come to help you locate the menu. Take your pick."

She points to her bedside table, upon which sits the menu in question. "Located."

He opens his mouth to say something else, but then stops, eyes halting on the table.

"Wait." He rushes forward, snatching up the menu. "You talked _Sam's Pizza_ into delivering here?"

"You'd be surprised to learn how easy it is to get what you want from a bloke like him by acting like a ditzy flirt on the phone." She shrugs. "Or by pretending to cry."

"If only I'd known that was the way to go. Though somehow I don't think the impact would be quite the same." James shakes his head in amused wonder. "I ring him up at least once a week and he always says no to me."

"Oh, yeah, some maniac in the building was harassing their delivery boy, apparently."

James snorts shortly. "If you haven't figured out who that maniac is yet, Evans, you're not as clever as I thought you were."

 _Of course_ it was Sirius, she thinks. She had suspected as much, hazily recalling him bounding into James's bedroom with a mention of having gained a free pizza, and he seems to be so utterly unconcerned with respecting the boundaries of normal human interactions in general, and—

Hang on a second.

How does he know her full name?

Did she tell him?

No. She didn't. She _wouldn't_ have told him that, likely not even drunk, on the off-chance that he _did_ fancy her and looked her up on Google. People _do_ that nowadays, all the time—hell, the only reason Lily hasn't looked _him_ up online is because she doesn't know hissurname yet—and that would be very bad for her, indeed. She's not sure if she wants him to know what she's been trying to do with her life for the past number of years. Better to be a waitress with a rickety bike and a penchant for drunken burglary than the confirmed failure she knows she is.

"I never told you my surname," she says quietly.

He immediately goes rigid. "Hadn't you?"

She shakes her head.

"Oh." He dithers a bit in place, fiddling with the menu. "Well, you know, I probably—"

"Probably what?"

"I mean, I think someone once—I must've—" He cuts himself off for the final time, sighs heavily, and looks harried. "Alright, do you want the truth, or the lie? Because I can give you the lie, but it's not coming out very well right now."

The slightest prickle of unease crawls up her spine like a many-legged insect.

What does he mean by _lie?_

"That...depends?" she says slowly, frowning up at him. "Do either of these explanations involve you going through my mail, or harbouring some sort of secret obsession with me? Because the first is plain illegal, and I've just moved _out_ of my old flat for the second reason, so…"

His discomfort drops, replaced with a deep frown. "Someone was obsessed with you in your last flat?"

"Yes," she says bluntly. "My last housemate. He was one of my best friends."

"A best friend who was obsessed with you," he repeats dully.

"He hid it well, for a while," she explains, idly combing her fingers through Algernon's fur, staring at her dresser in a detached sort of way. She hates having to justify to people why she didn't cut and run sooner, because people didn't _know_ Sev, they didn't know how broken he was, nor how lost he would have been without her support to see him through his really bad days—just as _she_ hadn't known just how cleverly he used his own pain to repeatedly manipulate her. "Then... not so well, for about two years, but I was—I mean, the particulars don't really matter right now, suffice to say he's left me a little bit wary, and I think we're on _you_ at the minute, right?"

The frown doesn't disappear, but he begrudgingly moves back on topic. "Right. No, I have never gone through your mail. I haven't…" He makes a noise. A half grunt of resignation, half sigh. "I...saw you in a play."

Something punches, hard, beneath her ribs. Just that, no more. A _thump._

"A few months ago," he continues, and he hasn't seemed to notice that her heart has formed a fist. _"To the Ends of the World."_

 _Thump._

"You were really, really good."

 _Thump._

"You saw that play?" she says, in a small voice. _Thump._

"I saw that play," he confirms. "Once...or twice, or something."

"And you remembered me from it?" she presses on. _"Me,_ specifically? My full name, and everything?"

He gives a rapid nod. "You were the best part about it. Truly. Of course I remembered your name."

 _Thump. Thump. Thump._

"Right," she says, slightly dazed on the surface, paddling crazily underneath, and stares at nothing in particular.

This is...ludicrous.

And uncomfortably strange.

And unprecedented, and embarrassing, but also sort of...wonderful.

In her younger years, Lily had believed she stood a genuine stance of mapping a career on stage, and she had dreamed, with a naive kind of faith, of the day that someone she met in an everyday manner—a stranger, not a friend, who would have bias and love to motivate their actions, nor an audience member with her work still fresh in their mind—would _know_ her from something that she had done.

People did, on occasion, recall her face—from a hanging, photoshopped poster at Primark, or a poorly-written teen soap that had killed a couple of her brain cells merely by existing—but never from a part she'd played that actually made her proud.

No matter, she had told herself. It was stupid of her to expect anything different. That had long since ceased to be any sort of dream.

Now James has just...obliterated the thing that she had come to begrudgingly accept.

He _remembers_ her, in exactly the kind way she'd always hoped she'd be remembered.

He remembers her from something that was purposeful and good, from something that _spoke_ to people, parsimonious as the production had no choice but to be, in that tiny little theatre above the pub on Pembridge Road. That play was glimmering starlight captured in an empty jar—a beautiful, shining standout in her life, the big crescendo that came before her fall. Members of the audience would wait for her after the show—mostly women, often emotional, many sporting tear-tracks on their puffy, smiling faces—to clasp her hands and tell her that she had spoken a pain they knew all too well. A handwritten letter had been delivered to the theatre just for her—the first of its kind she'd _ever_ received, along with a stunning bunch of sunshine-yellow roses—from a woman named Euphemia, who had been with her family the night before, and wanted her to know that she was marvellous, simply _marvellous,_ and strong and passionate and raw.

She kept that letter, popped it in her jewellery box with a couple other trinkets that mean everything to her. Sev got to it before she could, has it hidden away somewhere, and that kills her.

But _this,_ James, knowing her, knowing _the_ _play,_ enjoying it enough to have seen it more than once, thinking _she_ was good enough—the best part of it—to warrant so much as a scrap of continued attention, that he didn't just like her and forget her the moment he walked out the door...

It feels like getting that letter.

And maybe that's just because she likes him so much—more than makes any sense, after such a short time.

That simply cannot be helped, it seems.

She looks up at him, and it's clear that he's so very perturbed by all of this—her brief overview of Sev must have put the fear of god into him, made him think she'd lump him in the same boat, just for liking a bloody brilliant play that she had happened to be part of, when here he is, just trying to be a decent bloke—and doesn't seem of much of a mind to talk, now that she has lapsed into her reverie.

She doesn't know him all that well, but she already knows that 'not of a mind to talk' is not a common trait of his.

Stupid boy. Adorable boy.

"This isn't some sort of prank, is it?" she eventually ventures, her tone almost apologetic, because it's not—she _knows_ it's not—but she just has to be _sure._ "You're sure that Mary didn't put you up to it, or you didn't see my name somehow, and Google me, and now someone's about to jump out of my wardrobe with a camera and put me on the internet?"

"Not a prank," he assures her quickly, firmly. "Though...I mean, there may have been some Googling after the play. A bit of Googling. Very harmless Googling."

From one shock to another. "You Googled—"

"Just because I was so impressed!" he's hasty to explain. His hand goes back to his hair, and he rakes through the strands with jittery fingers. If this is all for show, he's a better actor than she is. "I was sure you must be some kind of West End actress doing a charity show for a producer friend or something. You were so far above everyone else. I thought I'd see what else you'd done, recognise some of it, surely."

"That's—I need to sit down," she says, and immediately remembers that she _is_ sitting down. "I mean—no, sorry, this literally _never_ happens so I—this is so utterly bizarre."

"Think of how bizarre it was for me!" he cries. "Walking in on you—this actress I'd seen up on stage, who I'd tracked down in episodes on the telly just so I could watch what else she'd done—in my _bathroom._ It was…" He makes a face, then sort of winces. "Not that I'm trying to make it sound less creepy from my end. I really am sorry if it seems that way. I just think you're talented."

"Right."

"And then you showed up next door," he meekly concludes. "I am the victim of a series of unlikely events."

Her heart needs to slow down, lest it _thump, thump, thump_ right out of her chest, flopping uselessly between them, a new and exciting toy for the cat. _She_ needs to...she doesn't know. Get a grip on herself.

Talking about this is wonderful and painful all at once; wonderful because he _remembered_ her and he _thought she was great_ and that's _exactly_ the kind of thing she's been needing, wanting, _craving_ to hear for quite a while, between her sister's constant, hateful disparagement, the extraordinary nosedive her career has taken, and how completely, utterly _shit_ she feels—how ignorant and stupid—about how easy it was for Severus to weave her into his cataclysmic tangle of lies and deceit.

It's painful because he's seen her on stage, and on the most basic, most self-conscious level of her soul—or the part of her brain that fires up her heart and sets her stomach aflutter when he so much as slants a smile her way—that's just so bloody _mortifying_ to think about.

"You don't sound creepy," she assures him. "It's not—it's more like—"

"Unsettling?" he offers. "Very strange? Like some cosmic force is playing a joke?" He nods sagely. "All things in my head, too."

"No, not that," she sighs. "It's just, I don't often get told that I'm _talented—_ or, I mean, at least not like that, like they really, strongly believe it. Most people aren't nearly as insistent about it as you seem to be."

"Oh." He straightens a bit at this, drops his hands back down to his sides, losing some of the anxiousness about him. "Well, that was the easiest part to confess. You _are_ that talented. Didn't you notice how much bigger your applause was at the curtain calls than everyone else's? I did. And—" He smiles ruefully. "Not to bring us back—again—to murder...but you are _quite_ good at dying on screen. Best dying I've ever seen, even."

"See, now I _know_ you're exaggerating," she accuses, then lets out the smallest, nervous laugh. "But...thank you. So much, honestly. Everything is sort of shit at the moment, career-wise, hence the waitressing. And the Asos website. And feeling really bloody awful about myself in general, actually, so you've helped. Really, you have no idea how much, but it's honestly a lot."

Slowly—as if waiting for her to object—James sits down on the bed beside her.

Her bed.

He's sitting on _her_ bed.

He's watched her terrible television deaths—or one of them, at least—and part of her hates that he has, wishes she could scrub his brain of the memory of it, but he thinks she's really good, thinks she's _talented,_ and he's…

Close, really. Very close. If she shuffled over just a little, merely an inch or thereabouts…

She really wants him to kiss her. Lovely boy. Pitiful girl.

"Well, I'm glad I helped," he says, voice quite light. "I'm sorry about...I mean, you did also mention that first night about things being...less than ideal. I don't want to pry. I just _do_ think you're talented, whatever waitressing or modeling you're doing now besides. Do you want to get back on stage?"

"And not get murdered for a living?" she suggests, then laughs again. "Though, actually, the _one_ time I did Shakespeare it was _Othello,_ and I got strangled by my husband at the end, so nowhere is safe, really, but yes, I'd love to. I don't want to be famous, or anything like that—I never have—but I really love theatre."

"I don't know anything about acting," he confesses, shrugging. "Or theatre business. I'm sure it must be difficult, and that likely sounds condescendingly simple at best. But from one random bloke who saw you in a play one night and thought you were a real wonder…" He leans in a bit closer, tilts his head. "I think you've got something there. So maybe be _slightly_ less deeply miserable about that? If nothing else?"

She's keenly away that if it were Sirius saying all this, or any other relatively new acquaintance in her life, she likely wouldn't feel the way she feels now—this mushy, melty, pulse-quickening tumult is all because of him.

She's known him for all of five minutes.

A long-ish five minutes, yes, during which time he _has_ seen her half-naked, and taken her to work in his unexpectedly fancy car, but five minutes is still five minutes, and hardly a sufficient enough time in which to comfortably feel whatever connection it is she feels to him.

And yet…

He gave her that lift. Loved the bread she made him. Brought his cat to see her simply because she'd asked.

Two weeks ago, he'd called her pretty.

Does he…

No. Best not to assume.

But if he _does,_ is that a good thing? A terrible thing? Is it something she should mention? Something she should vow to never speak of?

Lily opens her mouth, then closes it again.

Her instincts are correct, she can't just go around assuming that he fancies her because he said and did a couple of considerate things, not just because it's highly conceited, but because it's a rather telling indication of her disdain for men. She shouldn't expect every bloke to be nice to her just because they want in her pants—not everyone is going to be Severus, for crying out loud—because she doesn't want to become such a cynic.

He remembered her from the play and looked her up online, yes, but no doubt he could have taken a programme home and spotted her name later. It's not as if he read it once and committed it to memory forever. Lily has watched every _single_ thing Liam Cunningham has ever done, because she's astounded by his talent. Not _once_ has she ever looked at him on screen and thought she'd like to cut herself a slice.

"Are you this nice to everyone?" she says, setting her course on this specific track. Remaining with the subject at hand will turn her into a puddle of mush, and she thinks a little traction will make her feel much better. Calmer. Less inclined to _thump._ "Or did my drunken exploits earn such a significant chunk of your pity that you feel obligated to boost my ego?"

"It's not pity or obligation. Only vaguely creepy-sounding respect. A very genuine ego boost." He says it sincerely, simply, which is heartening, if less than helpful in determining the inclinations of his heart. "Though if my mother ever happens to be around, please feel free to inform her I'm this kind to everyone. She'll feel terribly validated in her parenting choices."

"Well, if you _must_ insist on making me feel special, I suppose I'll take it," she agrees. "From you, _and_ from your cat."

"What's that?" He leans in, tapping his ear. "Has my hearing gone, or was I just placed _before_ the cat?"

"You got that from me naming you first?"

"I will cling to syntax semantics if I must."

"Are you jealous of your cat, or are you just _that_ starved of affection from girls?" she asks, happy to be advancing to a topic where she feels she has a little more control. "Because I can shoot you a hug out of sympathy, if so."

"I have not sunk so low as to accept pity hugs," he declares primly. "If Algernon can gain them for free, I'll just have to work harder to earn them."

"In fairness, Algernon can fit in my lap, which makes cuddling a little easier," she points out, and stretches out a hand toward him. "Can I have that menu, please?"

"Oh. Yeah—" He extends it out to her, but then at the last second, pulls it back away, out of her reach. "Wait."

She frowns at him. "Wait for what?"

He cocks a taunting eyebrow. "This is an important neighbourly test now. Should I be extending the ordering power over to you? What if you order something terrible?"

"After all those nice things you just said, it offends me that you'd even suggest such a thing."

"Show me your mettle, Evans. What toppings columns do you sway towards?"

"I sway towards, 'Sam will actually deliver to me, but will tell you to bugger off if you try calling,'" she reminds him, smiling sweetly. She's grateful to him—a million times over—for letting her steer them right back to this jokey, teasing place, an arena in which she feels she can perform at her best. "You _have_ no ordering power here, need I remind you?"

"You are ruthless and unkind to mention it," he says—then offers the menu back over. "But not incorrect."

"Pepperoni and mushroom it is," she declares, taking the menu from him. "Do you have your phone on you? I left mine in the kitchen with our idiot friends."

"Yeah, right here—" He squirms a bit, digging into his back pocket. "And for the record, you've made the most excellent of choices and I never should have doubted—ah." He stops. He has his phone in his hand now, but he seems sort of startled by what he finds there. He begins swiping at things quickly. "Sorry. Just a sec—"

She's not actively _looking_ at his phone, but it's not difficult to spot the mountain of text messages that have popped up in his notification wall. "Girlfriend missing you?"

He glances over at her briefly, swiftly. "The nonexistent one? Oh, yes. She's desolate without me." His fingers continue to swipe over the screen. "Or I made the terrible mistake of entering a group chat with fourteen preteens who think they need to inform everyone each and every time they release wind. One or the other."

Well.

That's her told.

And as for Miss Perfect Posture Rosalind—who _nobody_ asked for—has most certainly been put in her place, along with her morning yoga and infuriating superiority complex.

She can bloody well stay there.

"That's—" she begins, and smiles rather dryly at him. "Should I be worried about the fact that you're a grown man in a group chat with fourteen kids?"

He chokes out a laugh. "Adding further crimes to my growing list of charges? Hate to deny it of you, but—I'm their coach. Or...mostly just their coach." He waves off the semantics. "It's my job. There's this programme that we run for kids in the city—football clinics to give them something to do that's not getting them into trouble, or...well, some just don't quite like being home, so that's part of it, too. They're only meant to use my number for emergencies, but you try telling that to a group of twelve-year-olds."

"Your job is… helping disadvantaged kids?" she says in disbelief.

He shrugs.

Is he _taking the piss?_

She'd just come up for air, now he's dunked her back under _again._

This has to be a joke. Hah. Hah. Did Mary orchestrate this? She has never gotten over that day in sixth form when she came to school wearing odd shoes and Lily failed to point it out for an hour because she found it too bloody funny to let her make an idiot of herself.

Hah.

It's a revenge plot. Mary's revenge plot. An unnecessarily detailed, expensive, deeply cruel revenge plot, but Mary has always been a little odd. She dated Weeps-During-Fellatio-Todd of her own free will for close to three years.

It _must_ be a revenge plot, because her deeply attractive, immensely sweet, helpful, intelligent, and charmingly articulate neighbour who _liked her in that play_ cannot, on top of everything else—and everything else already means so many things—have chosen to make helping children his life's work, or Lily will be hopelessly screwed until the very end of her tenancy.

Beyond her tenancy, even. He's _very_ handsome.

And a football coach, at that. He's bound to be super fit from all that running around in shorts, working up a sweat in the midday sun—they're right in the middle of June, after all—impatiently pushing his damp, coal black hair from his beautiful face to keep it out of his eyes, mopping his perspiring brow with a shirt that is no doubt clinging to every hard, taut, sinewy muscle in his...

...this is all rather pathetic, on her part.

Lily knows that she's sap—a rom-com-watching, Bonnie Tyler-listening, romance-novel reading sap, who sneakily eyes-up wedding gowns when she walks past bridal boutiques on the street and has _long_ fancied the idea of pretending to have a fiancé just so she could try one on—and she has learned to be okay with that.

Apparently, now, she is also a slave to a heady cocktail of foolish, melty-heart sop and a savagely thirsty desire to climb him like a tree.

He works with children, though. _Disadvantaged children._

"That's your job?" she repeats. "That's what you do with your _life?"_

Any regular person may hold themselves with a certain amount of pride upon such an admission—why yes, I'm quite the handsome humanitarian, and doesn't that make me marvellous?—but instead, James all but squirms in discomfort.

"Among...a few other odds and ends, yeah," he says, staring rather pointedly at his phone. "It's not paid, see. Mostly I'm just an uncompensated chaperone. A hostage, from time to time. A paper-pusher. You'd be _shocked_ how much paper comes with trying to wrangle a few kids into a decent meal and somewhere safe to go, so...yes. Odds and ends. Feed Algernon. Don't let any of the children eat paste on my watch. All in a day's work." He thrusts his phone at her unceremoniously. "Here. Just...ignore any vibrations. They can go on about farting for hours."

She takes the phone from his outstretched hand and looks at it. A message from someone named Curtis has popped up on screen, displaying a slew of vomit-face, laugh-crying, and biohazard-mask emojis.

"So, am I supposed to be unimpressed by this charitable saviour thing you've got going on?" she asks him, in a droll, quippy kind of way that says she's super breezy about all this, doesn't mean a word of what she really, truly means, and doesn't care one bit about what he might look like with his shirt off. "Just curious, because I'm an actress, you know, I can totally pretend that I'm not a little turned-on."

He coughs.

Maybe it's a cough.

Maybe it's something else being masked by a cough. But his face has _definitely_ gained a bit of red.

God. She can't start with this—reaching, and reading into every little thing, and looking for signs, and flirting like a sex-starved idiot. She is a grown woman, not a teenage girl with hormones running amok.

Maybe a _little_ flirting, though. That would be...acceptable. He hasn't taken offence to any prior attempts at coquetry, so why put an end to it now?

A little flirting is fine. Reasonable. _Friendly._

Chandler and Monica, they are not, but that doesn't mean they can't be friends. Their fast, easy rapport practically demands it.

"Oh, you know"—he waves a hand, then sticks it in his hair—"please do… be impressed as you will. I _am_ striving to earn that hug, after all."

"Ah."

"A neighbourly hug," he clarifies. "Like Algernon."

Algernon's paw is pressing into her crotch.

She refrains from telling him that.

In fact, she doesn't need to, because Mary chooses that moment to tiptoe up and poke her head through Lily's door.

"You ordering?" she asks, in a tone that says, 'you ordering?' and eyes that say, 'ooh, la, what's going on in _here?'_

"Just about to," Lily calmly replies, waggling James's phone, then types out the number that's printed at the top of the menu. "James and I are splitting a pepperoni and mushroom."

"His hipster mate wants a meat feast, so I'll go in on that," Mary says. "Get me some garlic dip too, yeah?"

"Sure," Lily says, with a quick thumbs-up, and Mary skitters off. She slants a small smile at James as she raises the phone to her ear. "Your gang of mates will sadly have to wait for what will no doubt be your immensely profound thoughts on flatulence."

James laughs, an almost-silent, controlled laugh—a _considerate_ laugh, because the phone is ringing in her ear, after all—but one that shows his lovely white teeth, and a perfect dimple in just the right spot.

He could floor a woman with that laugh, if he wasn't a bit more careful.

Pity he's not on the menu.

* * *

James does not recall making the conscious decision to wade happily into the embrace of alcohol this evening, but he somehow finds himself swaddled in its warm hold anyway.

He thinks on it now—fifty minutes into this very romantic film, approximately two hours into this very neighbourly group hang—and realises that the room has gained a rosy sort of hue, and everything's loads funnier, and what exactly did Next Door Mary put into these margaritas, anyway? Morphine?

She may very well be attempting to tip James into his grave.

Or, at the very least, _tipple_ him onto her living room floor.

He is...swimming slightly closer to the line of tipsy.

And—worse—even more slightly closer to the line of besotted.

Sotted _and_ besotted.

Terrible combination, that.

When exactly this occurred—either of them—is all a bit hard to grasp at now. Everything's gone vaguely blurry and dreamy at the edges, but it's quite possible he was doomed all the way back when he first walked into flat 308 and was immediately assaulted with _handsome_ and cat cuddles and a floral dress that swishes around Lily's legs as she walks, and flashes peeks of her satiny skin with curiously missing blocks of fabric. James does not understand fashion, except to say that it is a device of psychological torture.

The questionable margaritas were introduced after that—along with Mary, who seemed significantly more interested in Algernon than in James, but who said _very_ intriguing things when not rendering him useless from roofied tequila—but that does not seem to be the point of concession, either. It's certainly not until after James had returned from Lily's bedroom—Lily _Evans's_ bedroom, who now _knew_ that _he_ knew her name was Lily Evans, as well as a brief (and humiliating) overview about how that came to be, with him leaving out only...one or two theatre visits and approximately nine trillion YouTube and telly viewings in the tale, but James is not going to lambaste himself for strategic omissions that would've only made them both wholly more uncomfortable. He doesn't want to spook her. He hadn't known her then. It is...different now.

Different, in a very _neighbourly_ way.

A neighbourly besotted way?

Hm.

Neighbours went in other neighbours' bedrooms all the time, though. Even tidy little bedrooms that smelled like her and were filled with her things and did not contain any kind of shoewear on a bedside table for one to sigh and coo at, but merely a menu from James's _very favourite_ pizza place. He'd sat on her bed— _her bed_ —with Algernon still weaving his fluffy little body between them. He'd told her she was talented, and she seemed so _surprised_ by it, so touched, that James was sort of surprised and touched, as well. It had never occurred to him that she wouldn't know how special she is. He'll tell her all the time, if it gets that happy little flush on her skin, the sweet look in her green eyes. That he finds himself trying to impress her equally as much when he pulls out his phone and finds the lads blowing it up to pieces is perhaps a bit grubby and obvious, but he's never claimed to be above that. He wants her to know him, and like him, and fancy having him around, and he can want all those things in a neighbourly way, can't he?

James has now lost track of the number of times he's thought the word _neighbourly_ in the past seventy-two hours, but he's helpless to fix that.

Frankly, he'll just tack it on to the rapidly growing list of _other_ things he's lost track of this evening—like how many refills of Mary's brutal margaritas he's consumed; the total amount of instances in which he's caught Lily's eye, shared something like a furtive smile or a look or a Nod with her; the sum total of Sirius's neverending cracks about marriage and cat-parents and a best man's speech he begins composing on the fly at least three separate times, to Mary's polite and approving applause.

James _hasn't_ lost track of how much he likes Lily. That, if anything, has been very diligently watched as it rises up, up, up, with each successive second in her presence.

So now he sits on the couch beside her, only half paying attention to the film she and Mary had insisted they _must_ watch, half hoping she doesn't realise that he's only half watching, and continuing to indulge in periodic splashes of liquid courage to make this whole thing loads more survivable.

If there is surviving it.

James is beginning to have his doubts.

"I love this part," he pipes up, wanting to _prove_ he's still functioning, still surviving, still…something.

Though...hm.

Perhaps he's said it a _bit_ too loud. Is he being a bit too loud?

Mary shushes him.

Oops.

"Sorry," he whispers, huddling into his—third? fourth?—marg, but even his whisper is...not quite the thing. His eyes dart over to Lily—pretty, darling, tempting Lily, curled up not even an arm's length away, similarly huddled into her cup of tea, smiling at him like she is _also_ quite aware his speaking and whispering are not quite the thing, but she's not angry about it. Rather, she looks like she wants to laugh.

James likes her laugh.

He likes too many things about her, and that's exactly the problem.

"Sorry," he tells her again, specifically.

"It's alright," she quietly responds, and drops a gentle pat on his arm. _Touches_ his arm. "Just try not to wake your mate, okay?"

James glances over to the nearby armchair where, indeed, Sirius seems to be snoring, another victim of Next Door Mary and her poisonously heavy hand.

He leans in closer to Lily, and maybe gets a good whiff of her hair—something light and tropical. Coconut. "Safe to say you're getting a bit sick of the wedding and mummy and daddy jokes?"

Said quips had been relentless most of the night—Sirius was nothing if not dedicated to his causes—so that even James was beginning to wish they'd thought to lock Sirius out on the balcony ninety minutes ago and left him there for the remainder of the evening.

And yet…James wants her to say no. Something in him _hopes_ she says no. But then again, he hopes she doesn't, because then he's going to have to rethink a lot of things, and he's not sure he should be thinking at all right now, much less _re-_ thinking. Can't be trusted with any of it, at any time, in any state of vague intoxication.

He takes another long sip of margarita.

That's better.

"I mean, it's fine, but he's not exactly hitting the pinnacle of _anyone's_ comedic potential, is he?" Lily reasons, and cocks her head to take in Sirius more fully—his mouth is hanging open while his head lolls ominously to one side, as if he's bound to tip and topple clean over the arm of the chair. Mary is on her own chair, so James and Lily—and Algernon, who is nestled in between them with his head on her thigh—have the sofa entirely to themselves. Their own little island. "It's basically the same joke over and over. You'd swear you'd never seen a woman in her bra before, the way he's been going on."

"Well, it _was_ a very special bra," James says, because he can't tell her the truth—that other women in other bras are not _Lily_ in _her_ bra. Frankly, they should not be talking about bras at all. It is likely very, very unwise to be discussing bras—most especially _her_ bras—right now. "Or so I was told."

She pokes her finger beneath the neckline of the gauzy, flower-patterned dress and tugs out the strap of—deep purple. Bloody hell. Could it actually be… the Little Mermaid bra? Back again to taunt and haunt him?—before letting it go with a small _snap,_ and it disappears out of sight.

"It is, ta," she says, and turns her eyes on the television. "Can you pass me a slice?"

James gulps some. Because he will play, and _re_ play, and _replay,_ that snap in his mind if he doesn't immediately get himself distracted, he moves toward the little table where they've set the pizza box. He still can't _believe_ she'd talked Sam into delivering here. A bloody _wonder_ , Lily Evans is. A magnificent marvel who knows that mushrooms and pepperoni are the best toppings, and who loves his cat, and who thinks Sirius is a pill, and who...wears bras. But, recall, James is not meant to be thinking about her bras. Even though she keeps bringing them up. And showing them to him. It was all done in quite a neighbourly way. Neighbours discuss and flash bras all the time.

Poor, unfortunate souls, neighbours are.

Or perhaps that's just him.

He reaches into the box and snags a slice, juggling his margarita glass in one hand and the pizza in the other. "Here."

She takes the slice from him with a murmured word of thanks and sets her tea on the floor to devote both hands to holding it, but otherwise doesn't look at him again—what's so _interesting_ about Colin Firth, anyway?—as she takes a generous bite.

He mutters something akin to _you're welcome_ or _bloody ponce_ , determined to watch the telly too, to not watch her, or her face, or her hands as they daintily maneuver the pizza. She has the slice folded neatly, he notices while he's _not_ noticing, the mushrooms and pepperoni crushed compactly together as she nibbles. She is paying more attention to the screen than to what she is consuming, and while James is still a bit grumpy about Colin Firth and his dry charm distracting everyone in the room, he supposes it's something to be thankful for that her preoccupation has lead her to remain unaware of how much James is staring.

He'll stop at any moment.

Any moment now.

"So, this is Colin Firth," she says suddenly, once she's swallowed a mouthful, and it takes James a second to realise that she's talking, not to him, but to Algernon—who burrows happily into her thigh, the fortunate recipient of a luxuriant petting, now that she's wielding the pizza single-handed. "We _love_ Colin Firth in this flat."

"Love's not the word," Mary pipes up from her armchair. "I'd shag him senseless."

"I'd be happy just to snog him, honestly."

"Hard same," Mary agrees. "Eddie's just...tongue. So much tongue. _Too_ much—it's like, I don't need to be fucking _excavated,_ just fucking get on with it."

"At least you _got_ a snog," Lily retorts darkly. "If I go much longer without being kissed, my jaw will probably fuse itself shut."

"Aww, honey," Mary coos, even through her laughter. "How long has it been?"

"I dunno, over a year?" Lily shrugs, and points at the telly with her half-eaten slice. "It's just—Colin seems like the type who'd take you somewhere nice for dinner first, y'know? He wouldn't try to get right to it like a dog humping your leg, unlike _most_ blokes." She ruffles the top of the cat's head. "'Course, _you_ wouldn't do that, Algernon. You've got far too much class."

This back and forth has come about too quickly and divulged too much information for James to process with any level of particular speed or decorum. He can nearly _feel_ his eyes bugging out at this driveled crap about crap Colin, and even _more_ crap about _super_ crap Eddie (who is Eddie?), but most especially— _especially_ —this mind-boggling notion that sixty billion men have been roaming the world for the last year, and not one of them—not _one of them_ —had had the good sense to see Lily Evans, her red hair, her kind smile, her sparkling wit, and thought, "Well, now, I've _got_ to get that girl to want to kiss me, don't I?" James has known her five minutes and it's all he's thought about from the very first second. The world is filled with stupid, stupid, _stupid_ people.

And James loves those stupid, stupid, stupid people, because Lily Evans deserves the very best of kisses, and none of them are worthy.

Especially not crap Colin.

Algernon is worthy.

James is...working on it.

Maybe.

In a neighbourly way.

" _That's_ your level of perfection?" he puts in incredulously, because all the rest of his commentary is best saved for another day, another occasion, another...room. "That he has a mind to feed you before feeling you up? As a member of 'most blokes', I feel as if I am offended."

She turns her bright green eyes on him, _finally_. "So, what you're essentially saying is you're a leg humper, and you don't take girls on dates?"

"What I am saying," James replies, with a single scholarly finger raised in protest, "is that I paid for this pizza, and I have _not the once_ yet tried to hump your leg." He pauses. "I mean, yes, I did end up with my face in your chest that one time, before the pizza, but that doesn't count."

Mary snorts loudly into her cocktail, but Lily quirks an amused eyebrow at him.

"Funny you should mention that night," she says. "Because only _hours_ before, I escaped a first date with a bloke who slid his hand up my thigh under the table and asked if I was interested in shooting a home porno, so you face-planting into my boobs wasn't even _close_ to the most degrading thing that happened to me that day."

"Leg humping creeps," Mary seconds.

James knows they are happily commiserating in their solidarity, but he is aghast at what he's hearing. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_ people. "Did you punch this wanker in the bollocks before you left?" he asks. "Please say you did."

"She can't just go punching every bloke who steps out of line," Mary argues.

Lily nods in agreement. "There'd be _so_ many toothless men stumbling around London."

"Besides," Mary continues. "If anyone deserves a punch, it's that prick, Severus, and his—"

"Don't talk about him, it'll ruin my good mood," says Lily loudly, and a still sleeping Sirius twitches violently in his chair. She shakes her head at Mary. "Nobody got punched, end of story."

James is not letting her get away with that. He may be a trifle messy at the moment, but now he's got a name—Severus—and that will be a useful start for the assassin James will hire. "Not end of. _Beginning_ of. Who's this other prick? Your scumbag old housemate? Why have you got so many pricks in your life that need punching?"

"Because she's pretty," says Mary.

"No, _you're_ pretty."

"Oh, well, if you insist."

Lily laughs under her breath as she bestows her attentions back upon the undeserving Colin Firth, but seems to spot James watching her in her periphery, for she turns her head to regard him with a pitying smile.

"You're pretty, too," she says, and pats his arm again. "Don't fret."

James is not fretting. He is thinking that he'd like to tell her she's pretty too, but he's not sure how to go about this in a neighbourly way. He's not sure how to go about it without grinning at her stupidly with emoji hearts in his eyes. He is not as cool or as glib as she is. He can't just say it without blurting out eight other things that will likely give his whole game away. If he's even _got_ a game. Frankly, he thinks he's lost the rules somewhere along the way and now it's anarchy and destruction and someone's robbing the bank, do not pass go, do not collect £200, everything is terrible.

But she _is_ pretty. _So_ pretty.

"You're trying to distract me with compliments," is what he says instead, stuffed full with airy nonchalance, and not at all vague panic. "It's a cunning play and I don't appreciate it."

"I know, I'm _so_ sorry for thinking you're attractive," she says, pouting. "Forgive me?"

She's much too good at this—the big doe eyes, the sickeningly sweet smile, the sparkling cheek that taunts him while her pursed lips say _you're attractive_. She's not the least bit sorry, and he knows that, and she knows that, and he wants to laugh at it, but it's not hilariously funny that he can't seem to think straight when she's around, and that's why he won't be accepting her contrition, thank you very much.

"You're not sorry at all," he sniffs. "Please eat your pizza and I'll think about forgiving you."

Her sad and deeply remorseful expression—which was never anything of the sort—melts away like butter in the sun, replaced by an all-too-knowing grin and glint of mischief in her eyes. "Weak," she mutters, and takes a bite out of her crust, returning her gaze to the telly again.

James should do the same. He should stop watching her, stop fawning after her, stop wishing she wouldn't merely be _teasing_ him with compliments, but actually mean them. He _does,_ truly and honestly, intend to do just that—quit making a mess of himself and start watching Colin Firth woo everyone in the room again—but out of the corner of his eye, he spots an errant bit of cheese Lily's absent eating has left lingering at her lower lip. She doesn't even notice, too busy smiling and Colin-ogling, but James notices and he wishes he thought it was something less than utterly adorable.

That won't do.

Without thinking much of it, he reaches out and smudges the bit of cheese off with his thumb.

Except…he doesn't immediately move his finger away.

He thinks he tells it to move. Is certain of it, even. But it's quite slow in listening.

 _Really_ quite slow.

He's sort of cupping her chin, actually.

Sort of cupping her chin, sort of stroking her lower lip, and now she's sort of turning towards him in startled confusion.

Shit.

What the _fuck_ is he doing?

"Cheese," he says quickly, and—thank you, _finally_ —drops his hand back to his lap. It's tingling furiously. "Had a bit of—smudge of cheese. All gone now."

The wide-eyed gaze she has trained upon his face doesn't seem to be put-on this time, but entirely genuine.

Shit, _shit._

"Yeah, sure," Mary snorts. "Who knew cheese could be so romantic?"

Lily, bless her heart, ignores her mate, and rubs the spot on her lower lip where his thumb has just been lingering.

"Is it gone?" she asks.

"Yup. Yes. Absolutely. Definitely gone," James answers hurriedly, though if she notices that his gaze is now completely fixated on the screen and not her face, hence making his hasty assurances presumptions at best, she thankfully does not mention it.

"Maybe you should check again," comes the half-drowsy input from the armchair.

Because of course—of _course_ —Sirius would choose that exact moment to rouse from his stupor.

James makes a note to strangle him later. "It's fine. She's fine. Go back to sleep, arsehole."

"When things just seem to be getting interesting around here?" Sirius yawns loudly, but shifts around in his armchair, more alert. "Not likely."

"Don't be so dramatic, Sirius, it was just a bit of cheese," says Lily absently, and turns away from James completely to look at Mary, evidently to communicate something that he can't be sure of, because he can't see her face, only that of Mary, who sends her friend a lazy shrug and mouths, 'told you so.'

Told her what? That her neighbour is a madman set on touching her? That's he's a fiend for cheese? James doesn't know, but he's certain it can't be anything good for him.

"I love this part," he says again—even more loudly than the first time, though no one shushes him on this go. The fact that he is not even sure what's happening in the film seems irrelevant, if a bit irresponsible.

On the screen, Colin Firth emerges from behind a door, clad in nothing but a towel.

Everyone else present looks at James strangely.

Right. He ought have expected something like that, honestly.

"What?" he asks with overcompensating hauteur. "You're all allowed to want to snog and shag him, but I can't even appreciate how he dons a towel? Grossly unfair."

Mary snorts with undisguised derision, as it seems she has a tendency to do, but Lily appears to be far more tickled by his idiocy, and starts to stifle a giggle behind her hand.

"'Course you can," she says, her voice sounding a little strained, and gives his thigh a reassuring pat.

A rather prolonged pat.

It's more as if she's...resting it there, for a moment, then she shifts in her seat, takes it away, resumes her petting of the cat.

He hasn't fooled anyone, and he'd like to promptly curl up in a hole and die.

Except she's touched his thigh, and he's too busy thinking about that to muster up the will to keel over and croak.

He's made this all unbearably awkward—again—and though she's amused, Sirius likely won't shut up about this for days— _weeks_ —and she's going to be a victim of that, too.

He leans in close to her, absolutely not trying to get a comforting lungful of the coconut again.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. Properly whispers. "Was just trying to de-cheese you."

"I kno—oops," she says, then gives a tinkling little laugh, having turned her head at the sound of his voice and almost bumped his nose with hers. Arms, thighs, noses…fucking hell. "I know, don't worry. I'd rather _not_ have cheese on my face that I didn't know about."

He probably shouldn't keep his face so close. He'll move it in a moment. Just a few more moments. "That's what I was thinking, too."

"Great minds," she agrees, then pulls her head back a little, regarding him with a more critical eye. "In fact, while we're on the subject..."

She reaches up and threads her fingers through a strand of his hair, root to tip, her nails grazing his scalp for just the briefest of moments.

"There," she says happily, and shows him a piece of white fluff between her fingers before she flicks it away. "That's been driving me mad for at _least_ an hour."

Arms, thighs, noses, _hair._ James struggles rather frantically to keep focus, clinging to the moment of her hands on him, in his mop of unruly strands, grappling to grasp her words and not her action. "I've had something in my hair for an hour, and you haven't said?" he manages hoarsely. "And here I was thinking you were admiring it."

"I was," she says simply. "That's how I noticed it in the first place. Why were _you_ staring at my mouth? I think that's the bigger question."

James knows one of the most paramount building blocks in any growing relationship is honesty, but he absolutely positively is _not_ going to be honest with her right now.

"I wasn't staring," he flagrantly lies. "I was...observing your pizza eating. You're a slice roller. _And_ you eat the crust. These are important things to note about a neighbour. The cheese was merely a byproduct of that."

"You know, considering the fact that you've pounded three margaritas, you're quite good at pulling deceptively articulate, yet utterly cockamamy excuses out of your arse," she remarks, and turns back to the film with a triumphant smile on her face. "But I'll take it as a compliment."

"You are very vain and presumptuous," James declares, curling back into his aforementioned margarita—for courage and for comfort. If Mary does indeed want him on the ground, James has given up trying to fight it. "You should certainly work on that."

She throws him the very briefest of hurt glances. "Ouch."

It's only a single word, one cringed syllable, but that's really all it takes. James leans back in instantly, tossing his pride aside. " _That's_ the cockamamy you choose to take to heart? Really? Out of all of them?"

She shrugs, her expression entirely unchanged. "If that's how you feel."

"I feel like a prize idiot," James confirms, as if that isn't abundantly clear. "And you're enjoying it."

"You should," she agrees, and turns—not just her head, but her entire body—to face him, propping her elbow against the back of the sofa and resting her cheek against her hand, her legs curling up behind her. "And I am, but it bodes well for our eventual friendship that we can feel comfortable being honest, right?" She smiles brightly at him. "Oh, we _are_ going to be friends, by the way. I decided several days ago."

 _Friends._ Something vivid and dazzling sparks inside James's chest, and he's sadly rather certain he can't blame the alcohol. "A few days ago?" When he'd still been not-so-secretly stalking her? "Are you certain it wasn't just when you discovered this morning that you can easily use me for my car?"

"Something you should know about me, if we _are_ going to be friends," she begins, eyeing him somewhat seriously now, "is that I don't use people for their stuff, even if their stuff _does_ have heated seats. I'd rather live in a rundown shack with a toilet in the kitchen and people I actually _cared_ about than live in a penthouse with people I don't—that's kind of a mantra of mine—and I think it's important to befriend the people I click with, because it doesn't happen very often."

"And you think that's what's happened here?" James asks.

"Yes," she says. "Don't you?"

 _Click._ There, put so simply, is the heart of the thing, James realises. Beyond the fact that he shivers when she looks at him, and melts when she touches him, it's...the _click_. The click that does not, as she says, happen very often. The click that he's a little daunted by, honestly, because he's not certain what to do with it, or how deep a gash this click has made inside him, and while part of him wants to jump right in to find out, the other part—equally as strong—wants to cuddle and protect it for all its worth, determined not to disturb it lest it slip from his grasp entirely. It's a precious thing, these rare clicks, and James does not want to fuck this one up because he may or may not want to snog Lily Evans until neither one of them can breathe.

He'd just as soon _talk_ with her, like this, for all those hours, and that's...new and rare and different, too.

He may only have known her five minutes, but it seems five minutes is all they've needed.

They click.

Really, truly _click._

He can't say any of this to her, of course. Half of it makes him sound like a lunatic, and the other half...well, probably makes him sound like a lunatic, too. But she's been honest, and he wants to be honest, as well. For the click's sake.

"Yes," he tells her, and smiles—maybe a bit sloshy, maybe a bit soppy, but earnestly all the same. "I like your mantra. I like our click. This click. Yes."

"That's that settled, then," she says, mirroring his smile—with far less slosh and sop, and a much greater dollop of sweetness. "Now, could you do me a real kindness, please?"

"Any kindness at all," James replies immediately.

"I still don't know your surname," she admits, with a self-deprecating wince. "And it's driving me nuts."

James bursts out laughing, not caring that Mary throws them a look, or that Sirius appears like he's ready to start spitting ideas about his best man toast again. James ignores them both, because he is _tickled._ Fucking hell, here he's been, trying to decide whether or not he may be feeling something he's never felt before in his life for his gorgeous, cool, mysteriously lovely neighbour...and the woman does not even know his surname.

Hard to make a marriage that way, isn't it?

Someone ought to let Sirius know.

"Potter," he says, but he's still grinning—it's all so preciously funny, he can't _not_ grin. "It's Potter. James Potter."

"James Potter," she repeats, as if she's turning it over in her mind. "I like that—James Potter—it's cosy. Like a really well-made cup of tea."

"It's not _cosy_ ," he objects, thinking…well, an afghan is cosy. He is not an afghan. She cannot think him an afghan. "It's...dashing. Strong and important. Like...some kind of very dashing beverage. _Whiskey_ ," he declares, falling into this now. "Or...the very expensive vodka that you don't taste in anything and gets you drunk very, very fast. _Powerful_ , see?"

"I _hate_ whiskey," she emphatically declares, "and vodka makes me sick, but I love tea, so you can take that and be happy, or I won't know what to do with you at all."

She _loves_ tea, James thinks, and then immediately says, "Alright. Fine. I'm tea."

"Tea _and_ biscuits," she clarifies. "The nice ones, though, with lots of chocolate on. Maybe a Fox's classic. They're fancy, and I can never afford them."

"I am very easy to afford."

"Oh, I know your cost. One banana bread loaf and a glimpse of my bra, and here we are."

" _Your_ banana bread. _Your_ bra." James jabs a pointed finger. "You have no one to blame but yourself for all this."

"I mean, shame on you for _having_ a cost, really. I gave you my friendship and my banana bread, and my bra that one time, for free, out of the goodness of my heart."

"I'm not sure how I'd go about providing a refund on any of that," James laments. "Can't I just make it up to you in more car rides?"

The hand that isn't being used to prop up her head against the back of the sofa reaches over and adjusts the cuff of his shirt, which has folded over on itself.

"It's very sweet of you to offer," she says, her fingers still fiddling with the fabric, her eyes trained on his wrist, "but you really don't have to. That's far too much of an imposition."

"It's not an imposition. I've told you." James tries not to stare openly at her fingers, so close to his skin. Arm, thigh, nose, hair, _wrist_. "We're friends now. And you're much better at car playlists than I am, as we've discovered. You're doing _me_ the favour. It's for the good of the music."

"Yet more cockamamy," she concludes, before she collapses against the sofa, both arms coming to rest in her lap, slouching to the side and almost, just about, leaning into him—they'd almost be touching top-to-toe if Algernon were not sequestered between their respective thighs. "But it's fine. I can't argue against it that much when I'm genuinely terrified of being squished on that bike."

"I think that's very wise," James agrees, and he's _not_ going to move closer. Not even a centimeter. Not even…not even the hairsbreadth away it would take to be touching her. "I can't afford to be having my friends squished—well, Sirius I probably wouldn't mind. But I'd need him back eventually. He pays half the rent."

"What's this you're on about over there?" Sirius calls, and it's a bit like frigid water being thrust over James's head, no longer just he and Lily in their snug little conversation, the island infiltrated, invaded by bothersome pirates.

"He proposed," says Lily dryly, her attention back on the telly now, and she slumps almost completely against James's shoulder. "I said yes. We're all very happy. Now be quiet, I'm trying to watch the film."

Lily's eyes remain fixated on the screen, clearly done with whatever had transpired here, though that's the way with friendships. Fun little conversations, jokes and quips, and then back to the movie. James is not wholly satisfied that he has to _remind_ himself it's just a friendship. That he can't tell Sirius to bugger off, politely ask Mary to head into her room, and continue with Lily—alone—here in this flat, on this couch, an island again.

It's the margaritas, surely, that are making him forget all this.

This afternoon, he was very set.

He's _still_ very set.

Because Lily is now his _friend_ , and they _click_ , and that's _important._

James settles back into the couch too, not missing the way Sirius's brow cocks up at him, the action as clear as if he were saying, "She's kidding—but you'd have done it, wouldn't you have, you soppy sod?"

James resents the eyebrow and all it claims.

He is not a soppy sod, and he will _prove it_.

For the remainder of the film, James does not look at Lily once. The fact that she is very nearly leaning on him still is...irrelevant. He watches Colin Firth make everyone fall in love with him, and James is okay with that. Fine, just fine. Mary mentions at least twice more how she'd like to lick Firth up and down, and Lily does not object, and James is fine just fine with that, too. He vaguely wants another margarita, but that's likely a poor choice. And he's not sure he should move. Because Lily is comfortable, and she's rather close to him, and it's not being a good mate or a good neighbour to disturb that.

But when the film ends, he is nearly the first one on his feet, looking for the door, because he's not certain how much longer he can be in here without doing something very, very foolish.

"It's getting late," is what he says, and ignores the way Algernon makes a distinct sound of displeasure at being disturbed. The cat huddles back against Lily in preference and protest. "Lily has an early morning tomorrow and all."

"Oh. Yes, I do," says Lily, as if it has only just occurred to her. She climbs to her feet and yawns, shielding her mouth with the back of her hand. "Pyjama time for me, I think."

James does not need to be reminded of Lily and her pyjamas. Specifically, Lily and her pyjamas and the bands of tempting undergarments that peek out from beneath the highly ineffectual nightwear.

Sirius clearly recognises this immediately, and takes gleeful advantage.

"All this pyjama talk is putting ideas in his head," he tells Lily, pointing at James. "Your unsubtle plays are not lost on me."

"You're a pitchy shower-singer," she instantly fires back. "Like nails on a chalkboard. Stop, for all our sakes."

"I second that," says Mary, who drags herself from her armchair with a bleary-eyed reluctance. "The shitty singing, and what you said about pyjamas. I'm shattered and I need my own." She waves first at James, then at Sirius. "I'm off to bed, nice to meet you both."

They give their polite goodnights—well, James is polite about it. Sirius is still very offended about the slights against his singing, and grumbles something to that effect—and Mary shuffles off in the direction of her bedroom, dropping a lazy pat on Lily's arse as she goes.

Not that James is looking at Lily's arse.

He is definitely, _definitely_ not looking at her arse.

Much.

"I suppose that's my cue, as well," Sirius says, rising to his feet, giving James a smirk that tells him _he's_ certainly seen where James's gaze has gone. "You say your goodbyes. Or don't. I won't wait up."

Sirius begins to whistle as he ambles towards the door—it's "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," and James cringes, hoping Lily doesn't notice. He'd apologise for the whole thing, but he's near out of breath with apologising for Sirius all the time, and he knows Lily is in on the game now.

"Your mate is unnaturally preoccupied with the idea of us having sex," says Lily, staring at Sirius's retreating back as he whirls out the door, still whistling— _we were barely seventeen and we were barely dressed—_ and lets it fall shut behind him. "Why is he so desperate to get you laid? Are you dying, or something?"

"Of embarrassment? Very nearly, yeah," James says, wanting to blush, or sigh, or kiss her—shit, no, not kiss her. He can't kiss her. "If it helps any, relentless ribbing is his way of showing affection. He likes you."

"Oh, I like him too, I suppose," she admits, and hugs her arms to her chest. She seems quite sleepy now—a soft, smiling kind of sleepy. "I'm really glad you both came over."

"But mostly glad about Algernon, yeah?" James cocks his head down to the ground, where his cat is— _really_ , what is _with_ him about her?—brushing against Lily's legs again. "I've resigned myself to second now. It's fine."

 _"Definitely_ Algernon," she says loudly, but shakes her head and mouths the words, 'totally you,' with a sly little wink thrown in, just in case she hadn't floored him enough already for one night. "But you're alright, I suppose."

He needs to mop himself up off the ground and get out of this flat, he decides urgently—more urgent than before. Though it's all been a bit urgent, he supposes, since near the moment he met her.

"Do you need help cleaning any of this?" he asks, waving a hand toward the pizza box, to the glasses of half-filled margs resting in the sink. It's the polite and neighbourly thing to do, and he needs to be strictly polite and neighbourly right now.

"Absolutely not, you're a guest—"

"Yes, but you've been kind enough to host, so—"

"Not a chance, Potter," she says, shooing him away. "Come on, off you go, before you start getting ideas about cleaning my flat."

"Not the _whole_ flat," he argues lightly. "Just the part I've had a hand in dirtying."

She pushes him, gently, to budge him from the spot he's rooted to, and he takes an ungainly step backwards, so she moves with him, and pushes him again. "You've been scrupulously clean, a dream guest, honestly. No helping out."

"Are you really certain?" He lets her prod him closer to the door, and doesn't know why he's resisting. He _needs_ to get out of here. "Because I've got to make up for Sirius, and that's a lot of ground to cover, so I need to be extra polite—"

"How about the next time we do this, _you_ host?" she suggests, basically steering him towards the door at this point, as if he's a piece of furniture that must be manually maneuvered across the room. "I'll be perfectly happy with that."

 _Next time_. Of course there will be a next time. Because friends hang out at each other's flats, and Lily is his friend now. He repeats this over and over as the door looms closer. _Friends, friends, friends._

"Thank you," he says, and they stop before the door, finally, and he's not certain what to do. "This was fun."

"You're very welcome," she offers, and drops her hands by her sides. "I've loved having you all over."

"Good. Glad." James stands there, then waves an absent hand at the carrier bag—that carrier bag filled with shoe and plate, that had started this all—which still sits innocently enough on the side table. "Enjoy your shoe. And your dance. And your modeling."

She stifles another yawn behind her hand, blinking sleepily up at him. "I will," she says thickly. "Cross my heart. G'night, James Potter."

"Night, Lily Evans," he returns, and reaches for the door handle, long, outstretched arm, at nearly the exact same time she's somehow, strangely, reaching for _him_.

What?

James blinks.

What was she…

Oh.

Oh, shit.

Was she going to _hug_ him?

"Oh, okay," she says, her eyes darting towards the living room. She takes a step back from him. "Sorry, never mind, I didn't—"

"No!" James near shouts, and his arms are reaching out immediately, grabbing her up, tugging her back. They cling around her body without much prompting, and she's clearly stiff beneath his touch, and James feels awful. "I didn't mean—I'd been waiting to earn this. You can't just take it back."

There's a horribly long moment in which she doesn't speak, or move, or do anything at all, and then she lets out a soft sigh of a laugh and relaxes against him.

"I won't, you silly thing," she murmurs.

And now they're hugging.

Really, properly hugging.

James _does_ feel like a silly thing, for a multitude of reasons. Her slackened body has curled into his with all its lush curves and comforting heat, and he thinks he's never liked embracing anyone so much. Of their own free will, his arms seem to band harder around her, but she doesn't seem to mind—of _course_ she doesn't, because she's the one who'd gone to hug him in the first place, and his mind plays that fact in his head over and over. She smells good. James is never going to be able to eat coconut again. Or maybe it's all he's going to eat. Undecided. She feels...James can't think of the word. Or he can, but all of them sound a bit crazy. Like _right_. And _good_. And _perfect_.

This is not perfect.

This is terribly, terribly far from perfect.

Because James is not meant to be hugging her like this. He's meant to be hugging her like a neighbour, like a friend, and neighbours and friends don't grip their other neighbours and friends like this and think thoughts like _right_ and _good_ and _perfect._

He's rushing again. He'd promised himself he wouldn't do that. Lily is too lovely a person to rush into anything—and the _click._ He's meant to be taking precious care of the blossoming _click_. He's not going to do that if all he wants to do his hold her in his arms and stay that way for a hundred or so years.

 _He's_ the one stiffening now. He knows she feels it. Everything that was so cosy gets a bit strange, and James has held on too long and is now regretting it, is trying to backtrack, and is not doing it well. His arms go up, easing off her in this strange little circle that makes it look like he's afraid to touch her, like she's got leprosy or something. That's not what he wants either. At the last second, he drops his hand against the top of her back. Pats. Once. Twice. _Goodnight, old friend, pat pat, cheers to you._

It's all gone so bloody awkward and it's _entirely_ his fault.

"Er." He pulls away completely, takes a step back. Is not sure what to do with his hands now. "So. Goodnight."

Lily's brows have knit in a concerned furrow—she's looking at him as if _he_ might be the one who is ill—but she does not comment on his abrupt change of behaviour, or in the change of atmosphere, for that matter. "Yeah, goodnight, then."

"Come on, Algernon," James says, bending down to try to catch his cat, who is huddled by Lily's legs and giving him a judgemental look that could not scream _why have you gone and done this to us, you useless sack of worms_ any more clearly.

James does not have time to argue with his cat about his choices. He's well aware of Algernon's thoughts about which bed _he'd_ been hoping to sleep in tonight, and it is not James's. Neither of them is getting what they want, apparently.

"Goodnight," he says again, and now he really just needs to get out of this flat before he bungles it more. "Thanks again."

She doesn't answer, but then, James doesn't much expect her to. There's really not much to say.

So he clutches his cat, prays for his dignity, and exits out the door.


	4. Between a Knock and a Hard Place

**Chapter 4: Between a Knock and a Hard Place**

Lily wakes up the next morning earlier than planned, following a night of restless, unsettled sleep—which is to say, hardly any sleep at all.

It appears that she hasn't been watching where she walks, because she has tripped headlong into an infatuation with her neighbour and is suffering the accompanying symptoms of such an ailment, including but not limited to: random, seemingly unprompted smiling, a renewed interest in looking her best every day, and large chunks of time spent gazing at her ceiling at night, deep in thought, over-analysing every look, word and inadvertent touch that passes between them.

Last night, for example—when they semi-snuggled on her IKEA couch, when their mates teased them, when he touched her face, and hugged her—has given her quite a lot to unpack, and re-pack, and unpack again, all for the sake of examining said night from a million different perspectives. Her quick and lively brain has no desire to rest on the subject, so when her eyes snap open to greet the day, she finds herself with over an hour to spare before her alarm is scheduled to go off.

Also, she can hear Sirius singing in the next flat over.

In truth, he's not singing in any real sense of the word. It's more like the petrified yowling— _"She was looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an L on her forehead"_ —of a dog in intense pain.

He is...not a good singer.

He probably takes a sick pleasure in that fact. Probably plays up to it. He's probably a lot better than he lets on.

James is likely burrowed beneath his covers on the other side of the wall that separates their bedrooms—twisting in his dark blue duvet and obnoxiously clashing lime sheets—right at that moment, pressing a pillow over his head to muffle the sound of this torturous caterwauling and willing his mate to drown in the shower, rather than get out of bed and tell him to shut up, because they've been playing this game for far too long, and Sirius has succeeded in draining all of the fight out of him.

It's just a theory, but she feels she knows enough about them both to assume that it's true.

Poor, sweet darling.

There are so many other, better things he could be doing in that bed than suffering his mate's terrible singing. His huge, warm, comfortable bed, ideally built to splay across, arms akimbo and spread-legged, like a happy, slumbering starfish.

Or share.

She'll have to put a stop to this unacceptable behaviour of Sirius Black's, she decides, as she pulls herself out of her own bed and slides her feet into her waiting slippers. Sirius is still owed his punishment for lying to her, they all deserves to sleep uninterrupted, and Lily will not have it said that she doesn't know how to seek vengeance when her honour has been impugned, or when her morning is interrupted by the musical equivalent of drinking noxious chemicals.

Thoughts of revenge take her through a brisk shower, into the kitchen and halfway towards a boiled kettle before Mary comes shuffling into the room, bleary, unkempt, and all the prettier for it.

"Did he sleep over, then?" her friend asks immediately, without so much as a perfunctory "hello" or "good morning" to preface her question. She looks around the kitchen as if she's expecting to see James leap childishly out of the pantry with an accompanying, dastardly yelp. "Did you make the beast with two backs? Where is he now?"

"Not here, which should answer all of your questions, surely?"

"Not necessarily. It's not like it'd be hard for him to sneak back home, is it?"

"You'd have noticed, you dragon. Don't pretend you weren't listening out last night."

 _"God,_ you're boring. I would have shagged him the minute I got him into my room, if I were you."

A loud clicking sound from the kettle indicates that it has boiled, and Lily slides towards it with her mug in hand, teabag already placed inside. She's not going to be as fresh as she hoped for Kingsley's photoshoot, but he'll be good about it, and has a makeup artist friend coming along who will cunningly conceal any dark shadows, brush some colour into her wan, freckled cheeks, and frost her tired eyes with industrial-strength glitter.

She'll _appear_ well-rested, even if she isn't.

In the meantime, she can't stand coffee, so tea will see her through the morning's activities.

"Shagging him as soon as I got him into my room would have been a little awkward," she reminds Mary, as the first splash of scalding water hits the bottom of her mug, "on account of how the cat came with us, and you and Sirius were in here, waiting for us to order pizza."

Mary points toward the television in the living area. "I have surround sound and every streaming service known to man. We would have been fine by ourselves for five minutes."

"Bold of you to suggest that we'd be done within five minutes."

"Optimistic of you to think you'd need more," Mary retorts. "What happened between the two of you in there, anyway? You were looking at each other all goggle-eyed and sappy when I walked in."

Lily still has plenty of time to kill before Kingsley arrives to pick her up in his Audi, so over her tea and a slice of jam-smeared toast, she runs through her conversation with James from the night before, including the strange coincidence of his having seen her play before he ever met her, the many wonderful things he said about her performance, and how she feels so comfortable around him, like they've already known each other for years, and how rare that is, and how cool it is that he feels the same way.

If she can't keep the smile from her face in the recounting, that's neither here nor there.

Unfortunately, Mary is the one listening to this story, and as is characteristic of her, she pours cold water over the whole thing as soon as Lily is done.

"What a creep," is friend's cold appraisal, her nose screwing up in distaste.

She's not sure if Mary believes she's commiserating with her, or if she simply doesn't care if Lily is slightly hurt by her assessment, but either way, she's not happy about it.

"He's not a creep," she counters, trying to sound casual, but the immediacy with which she responds rather negates any airs she may be putting on.

Besides, Mary knows her well enough to know what behaviour is normal and what isn't, and she most certainly used last night's movie-watching session to monitor them both closely.

"You just said he acted like a creep."

"No," Lily refutes, having never said anything of the sort, "you've just _inferred_ that he was a creep because of what I said."

"Because what you _said_ was creepy!"

"How?"

"Are you honestly telling me that you weren't freaked out when he admitted to having remembered you from a play you did _months_ ago, taken note of your name, looked you up on the internet and found a bunch of stuff you did on telly?" says Mary, as if it's a denunciation, as if she's a member of the prosecution reading a list of his offences at the Crown Court. "All of this at the same time, mind, that he starts offering you lifts to work?"

"I'm not such a princess that I'm going to let him give me lifts to work all the time, and if I ever do, it'll keep me off my bike—"

"And I'm thrilled about that because your bike's a piece of shit, but come on, no bloke does that unless they want something, so already he's got one major stalking point in his—"

"God, Mary," says Lily, not liking this conversation, or where it's going, or her friend's tactlessness in continuing to push a point—she _does_ have a point, but Lily is stubbornly disinclined to admit that—that she knows will only upset her. "It's not like I'm famous and he's rooting through my rubbish bins. If that were the case, I'd understand why you'd want me to be careful."

"You should already be careful when it comes to men—"

"And I am, okay?" she retorts. "I promise, I'm not stupid, and yes, certain aspects of the whole thing might _seem_ a little dodgy if you don't have all the information, but that's not how it is. Even if he does fancy me, it's just a coincidence that he saw me in the play before we met. I still would have moved in here. I still would have stumbled into his flat. The sequence of events doesn't automatically make him a creep."

"It doesn't _not_ make him a creep, either."

"Honestly, you're only saying this because you don't know him very well."

"Neither do you, babe. Not well enough, anyway," says Mary. "And look, maybe it'll be fine. Maybe it _is_ just that he fancies you, and stares at you like a boob because the actress he's got a thing for moved into his building and he doesn't know how to handle it—"

"Good. I hope that's true."

"—and if he can act like a normal human being instead of going all Max Cady—"

"Which he _does."_

"Does he?"

"This is why his cat can't stand you, you know."

"Oh, that's me well and truly scolded," Mary says, her voice teasing, amused. "A low blow indeed."

"I'm just being honest. Why should he like you if you don't like James?"

"I never said I didn't like him," Mary immediately counters. "I said that he was a creep. A weirdo. A boob. I happen to _enjoy_ creeps and weirdos and boobs, as long as they're not also psychopaths."

"That's true," Lily agrees, thinking of Eddie, who has been to the flat to excavate Mary, so to speak, twice more since his and Lily's untimely morning meeting in the hall, and persists in calling her Laurel. He swears, according to Mary, that the unfortunate state of his pants was merely the result of a cruel prank at the hands of his housemate, who hid all of his underwear, but his kissing technique has not yet improved.

Lily has never seen James in his pants, nor has she kissed him, but she's going to assume the best until she's proven wrong—which she won't be—and even if she is, pigs will fly before he falls anywhere close to the barrel-scraping depths of Nigel-Farage-Is-Just-Misunderstood-Todd. What right does Mary have to lambaste _him_ for his failings when she willingly slept with that dumpster fire of a man for years? What right does she have to judge anyone when she's casually seeing a bloke who snogs like a pneumatic drill?

"I just want you to be careful, is all," Mary presses on. "You barely know the guy, but the two of you are already snuggling on the sofa and driving to work together like besties. That's a lot of trust to put in someone, right off the bat."

"Mary, the night I met him I was plastered," Lily pointedly reminds her.

"And?"

"And, it would have been easiest thing in the world for him to take advantage of me in that state. I probably would have let him do it, but he didn't. He tried to get me dressed and send me home."

"Well, yeah, fair enough, that was decent of him. Just be careful, is all I'm saying."

"I will," Lily agrees, but rolls her eyes like a teenager and flounces off to park herself at one end of the kitchen island, her mug gripped tight between her hands. "Can I enjoy my tea in peace now?"

"Go ahead, just don't say I never warned you," says Mary, with a shrug.

It shouldn't annoy her that her friend has suggested such a thing about James, but it does; a deep-set, restless kind of annoyance, like an itch in the sole of her foot, buried too deep beneath the skin to fully be relieved. Mary has a habit of sticking by her first impressions with a doggedness that would be admirable, were it not so troublesome on occasion, for she'd rather remain wilfully ignorant to a truth than admit that she was wrong about a person, even if her beliefs have been completely disproved beyond all argument. She'd hated Lily's first serious boyfriend—Robbie was, by all accounts, a perfectly lovely chap who Lily only dumped because their chemistry felt off—on sight, and persisted in announcing her intent to run him over with a bus one day.

Lily should, perhaps, dislike this side of Mary, but she can't, because she's been cut from the _exact_ same cloth—stubborn, staunch, and loath to admit that she's made a mistake—and knows it all too well. She couldn't be told with Sev, not by Mary, nor Kingsley, nor by six or seven others, even though she _knew_ in her heart of hearts that something was seriously wrong.

Mary can have her triumph over Severus, and all the smug satisfaction of knowing she was right, for all she cares. Lily has owned to her mistakes, and Sev made sure she was punished for her failure to act with any speed. That's done. Finished. If she never sees him again, it'll be too soon.

But James is...not Sev.

She doesn't know him terribly well, not yet, but he's not Sev. She's _sure_ of that, feels it in her gut, in her bones, that this one— _this_ one—is one of the good eggs. Goodness seems to emanate from him, in fact. He's considerate, and generous, and utterly adorable when he's had a few too many.

She knows that she's a little bit nuts for having such faith in him. She knows that she sounds utterly asinine in her defence of this man she hasn't known for long, and that the intelligent, reasonable, standardized procedure for an acquaintance such as theirs is an aloof cordiality—she lives in an apartment building in Crouch End, not a charming row of country cottages in rural Kent, where it would make sense to cozy up to her neighbours—at best, or at least at first.

But she can't do that. She can't _not_ cozy up. She likes him far too much, likes the sound of his voice, likes the way that he smiles at her—has she _mentioned_ that he smiled at her a lot last night? That he looked at her often, and didn't mind her flirting, and seemed a little put-out by her crush on Colin Firth?

She wants to keep this one, these feelings, this person.

She wants the freedom to enjoy the butterflies in her tummy without an ever-lurking feeling of unease. She wants to revel in thrills of excitement when they pass each other in the hall without wondering if she's blinded to some awful, glaring problem. She doesn't want Mary to be right about James, not if Mary will insist upon offering an assessment that isn't positive and glowing, but now she's gone and called him a creep, planted her seed of doubt in the way only a best friend can, waiting for a beanstalk to flourish, and it's much too soon, and it has pissed her off. Lily is a little _too_ infatuated, yes, but she's only been that way for all of ten minutes, and it'd be nice if she could just be left alone to enjoy it before she starts to panic, and make up reasons to see him, and stare obsessively at her phone until her eyes start to blur, wondering why the text she sent was marked as read two hours ago, but he hasn't bothered to reply.

Which reminds her, she'll need to wangle his number somehow.

Not for any particular reason. Just to have it. It's useful to have contact details for one's neighbours, in case of an emergency. Say she was cat-sitting Algernon (she may or may not be considering adding cat food to this morning's online shop, just in case) and he accidentally ate some grapes. They can cause kidney failure in cats. James would need to be informed.

That's a terrible example. She would never bring that brilliant, estimable, beautiful creature into an environment with such readily available hazards.

She wants his number for emergencies. Nothing sexy. Feline kidney-failure. That's all.

Mary simply doesn't understand.

She can't understand. She's never hugged him— _been_ hugged by him—she doesn't know how it feels to be snatched up the way she was, pulled flush against his body, a length of lean, hard muscle that was no less warm and inviting for all of that, wrapped up tight in a pair of strong arms that had committed to hold her and went for it, her head full of the scent of him, and the feel of him, and _I'd been waiting to earn this,_ as if hugging her was a privilege, not an ordinary thing. Mary can't have ever had a hug like that.

Nobody has hugs like that.

 _I'd been waiting to earn this._ She's thought of that constantly since the minute he left her flat, having physically bundled Algernon out the door because the cat was so reluctant to leave her side. Why was he waiting? What possible merit could a moment in her arms hold over the innumerable potential hugs he could share with innumerable potential people? She knows that he likes her—or what he knows of her, as a person—enough to want to drive her to work, watch movies on her couch, banter with her, befriend her, but even then...she's sure she's never been hugged with such enthusiasm before.

It ended weirdly.

She left that part out when she recounted the story to Mary.

That was...strange. Confusing. He'd been holding her tightly one minute, slotted nicely against her like a jigsaw puzzle piece—no need to let go, nope, she was perfectly happy to stay there, for longer by far than any hug between mates had any right to last, so long, in fact that it was starting to feel distinctly romantic—and moving stiffly away the next, lifting his arms from around her body as if he feared she might infect him, patting her back like she was one of the kids he coaches, and he was trying to show approval without stepping over a line that might raise eyebrows.

She had almost asked what he was doing, and why, and if he could grab her again, but figured that he was just embarrassed, being as tipsy as he was, and perhaps more inclined to sentimental cuddles with relative strangers than he would be in his right mind. Lily has made many a lifelong friend whilst drunk and queueing for the ladies' room, only to forget the other girl's name as soon as she tasted fresh air. He must be an affectionate drunk, ground suddenly to a halt by the glimmerings of sobriety.

That, of all the explanations she has thought of, is the most realistic, if not the most comforting.

Off he had gone, one stiff-limbed, awkward man, taking with him his shame, his cat, and piece of her soft and vulnerable heart that's much too large to go unnoticed by its owner.

She knows it's foolish. She knows she's feeling far too much, too fast. She knows she'd roll her eyes at one of her friends, if they were falling victim to this trap. Mary would. Mary will. Mary _does._

But still.

Mary can't possibly understand.

Mary never hugged him.

* * *

It takes three weeks for the knocking to start.

She's trying to talk to her sister on the phone when it does.

Lily is listening to her chill-out Spotify playlist—"My Girl," by the Temptations is the current track on rotation—while she works out her budget for the coming month on an Excel spreadsheet, a pretty soundtrack to undercut a mundane, often depressing activity, when Petunia calls, prompting an immediate pause and answer.

Fortunately, her budget is a little less woeful than usual—thanks in part to Kingsley, who insisted upon reimbursing her for helping out with the academy's advertising, and a two-episode spot she's booked as a murder victim on yet another crime series, this time with the added bonus of meeting Claire Foy, who is playing the lead detective—so she's a little bit flush at the moment, and the prospect of a call from the Empress of Darkness strikes less dread into Lily's heart than it normally would.

Besides which, the introduction of a certain person—and all the slap, bang and fanfare he came with, not to mention his ornery cat—to Lily's life recently has seen her smiling to herself more often than she did in the days pre-new apartment, pre-drunken mishap, pre-James.

Lily feels as if she's slowly, _slowly,_ lifting herself out of the pit that swallowed her.

She's got a way to go yet, and mostly she feels as if she's peeping over the edge rather than establishing any kind of toehold to haul herself to freedom, but she no longer feels so corralled.

Petunia will be bitterly disappointed to hear it.

Lily's elder sister is one of those people who likes to say they're nervous when they aren't, Mrs. Bennett without any eye-rolling ridiculousness to smooth her jagged edges, the kind of person who—motivated solely by her love of spinning drama out of the littlest things—sends a plethora of frantic messages if she doesn't receive an immediate response to a simple query, her overactive imagination formulating five soap opera scenarios per minute, most of which involve Lily "going down a dark path" of drink and drugs like "other actresses do," many of which will slingshot from her speeding fingers and land in her sister's inbox within a matter of seconds.

A speedy typist, her sister. Petunia was a secretary when she met her husband-to-be— _his_ secretary, as it happened, and as nauseatingly _Mad Men-_ esque as that sounds—though she will be shortly surrendering her career to set up home in a detached house in Surrey that is as devoid of character as it is expensive.

Petunia has no real reason to give up work, but claims that it's "the done thing," or should be.

Oddly, she would likely be very proud to learn that Lily has set her heart on the wealthy heir apparent to an international luxury haircare dynasty and would convince herself that her younger sister has _finally_ learned to adopt her mercenary view of the world. She's marrying rich and thinks Lily should too, though not as rich as _her,_ so perhaps she wouldn't be all that proud, all things considered.

As if Lily gives a shit about money, beyond what she needs to earn to feed and house herself.

As if she had any choice in the matter of who she set her heart on, and when, and under what circumstances. The bleak reality of the thing is that her heart set itself on course without consulting her in advance, and all she can do is follow the trail of breadcrumbs she finds along the way.

In any case, not answering the phone to her sister is not an immediate option. Petunia does not take well to having her calls ignored, and it's not worth having her poor old mum get in touch to ask why, in a tired, weary tone, her eldest daughter has once again called to complain that Lily is being a neglectful sibling.

The Temptations are brought to an ungainly halt with her apologies, because they deserve much better than to be paused for Petunia, and Lily answers her call.

"Hi, Tuney!" she says cheerily, raising the phone to her ear.

"I'm having a nervous breakdown," says Petunia at once, tacking an affected sniff to the end of the sentence, as if the implied breakdown isn't serious enough to grab Lily's attention. "Eight weeks to the wedding and Dotty breaks her leg— _breaks her leg—_ windsurfing in the Maldives, if you can believe it! What was she even _doing_ in the Maldives? And _windsurfing,_ of all things, when my email _specifically_ stated that _all_ members of my wedding party were to _avoid_ putting themselves in situations that could monopolize their ability to attend! She's going to be wearing a _cast_ now! I can't have her walking down the aisle next to Roger from Vernon's office, she's going to look so _common_ and _awkward_ —"

Behind Lily's head, and from the other side of the wall, there comes a firm, yet insistent, _knock._

It's probably James, accidentally banging his elbow whilst performing complicated karate moves on his bed (she _knows_ he does it, try as he might to deny such a thing).

"—anyway, I told her she was out. Of the wedding, I mean. She can still _come,_ Vernon and I paid for a place setting for her and a plus one, but since you'll need to take over you can bring a guest, and she can come alone and take your spot—"

Another knock, louder this time, sounds from James Potter's bedroom.

"Sorry, Tuney," says Lily, and looks over her shoulder at the wall as if it might furnish her with answers. "What was that?"

There is a pause on the end of the line. Then an indignant huff.

"Are you even _listening_ to me, Lily?" Petunia wails. "I have an _emergency_ on my hands, and I _need_ you to fill in for Dotty or I'll be down a bridesmaid—I can't ask Pauline, she's ballooned like the Michelin Man since she had that ugly baby—but if you're not even _paying attention_ —"

"Yes, of course—" The knocking is growing more insistent, two at a time, three, _tap tap tap_ —what the hell is going on over there? "Petunia, I'm sorry, I've got—"

Petunia lets out another exaggerated sniff. "Is somebody knocking on your door?"

 _Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap._

Know your opportunities, Evans.

Also, she's starting to worry that James is sick, dying, or being brutally attacked on the other side of that wall. Maybe Sirius has also learned ineffective karate and has launched into a counter-strike.

"Yes," Lily lies, but firmly, so that she will seem entirely sincere in her blatant dishonesty. "Sorry, sorry—forgot I was expecting the landlord around now."

"You haven't missed your rent, have you?" said Petunia eagerly, distracted from her own woes, as always, by the prospect that Lily might be going through a shittier time than she was.

"No." _Tap tap tap._ If James is actually being murdered while she attempts to ward off her nosy sister, it will make for the strangest slice of irony that Lily has ever been forced to swallow. "No, it's a...repairs thing. I've got to go, Tuney. I'll ring you later."

"No, wait!" Petunia practically shrieks. "What about my wed—"

Lily ends the call, cutting her off midstream and almost certainly earning her ire later, but the persistent knocking on the other side of the wall is a more pressing worry than Petunia's wedding panic and general willingness to shunt her closest friends and relatives to the side, should they commit the heinous crime of accidentally injuring themselves.

Not to mention that she only seems to merit a position in her only sister's wedding party when she's the last possible resort.

She closes her laptop lid, pulls James's number—which he offered up of his own volition, negating any need for underhanded schemes—up on her phone and dials it immediately, lest her sister ring her back and complicate matters by tying up the line.

He picks up on the second ring.

"Hello," he says, his now familiar voice reverberating down the line with the slightest echo, vaguely discernible through the wall that separates his bed from her bed, and him from her, and causes Lily no end of undue frustration on her most sleepless of nights.

"Are you okay?" she asks at once.

She sounds more concerned than she'd like to, perhaps, but she can't be blamed for that. His knocking was incessant, so Lily is perfectly within her rights to assume that he was choking to death, or suffering a massive heart attack, or simply unable to shift an irate Algernon off his face.

"I am most certainly," James firmly intones, " _not_ okay."

"What—"

"Here I was, lying innocently in bed, enjoying the sounds of the Temptations crooning to me, and someone— _someone_ —cuts them off—cuts the _Temptations_ off, Lily! At the _very best_ part of the song!" His outrage is rampant and dramatic and so very typically him. "So, the real question is—are _you_ okay? Because I can think of no other reason for this type of tragic action except, maybe, impending death."

"I don't—I thought you were—" she begins, then starts to laugh. "My sister called me, you absolute bellend. Wedding emergency. I paused the song to take her call."

"If we're weighing out emergencies, I'm just not sure that 'wedding' tops 'musical genius,'" James replies. Then pauses. "Unless the groom is dead. Or the priest. Or...I don't know. I did give a pass for impending death, so I feel like I should be generous on that front."

"I thought _you_ were bloody dying! I wound up bloody hanging up on her because you had me so worried."

"You were worried about me?" He sounds delighted to hear this. "I was only trying to be expedient. What use is having a shared wall if you can't communicate through it?"

"A little warning would be greatly appreciated, next time I fail you as an impromptu DJ," she says wryly. "My sister is very sensitive and lacking in any semblance of a sense of humour, and she's _not_ going to be happy that I hung up on her for no reason."

"Explain about the Temptations," James suggests. "She's got a wedding coming up. 'My Girl' is required wedding music. You could call it matrimonial research and earn yourself points."

"You don't know my sister if you think she'd play that at her wedding, it's a string quartet or nothing." She leans back against her headboard, drawing her knees up to her chest. "My wedding, on the other hand, will feature lots of retro classics, as is only appropriate for a woman of excellent taste such as myself."

"Getting married, are you? Who's the lucky sod? And don't," he cuts in, "say Colin Firth."

"Couldn't possibly tell you," she replies, "as I left my crystal ball in the other room. Plus, nobody's asked me yet—well, one person asked me, but that was a long time ago."

"A long-ago marriage proposal?" There's a vague rustling on the other end of the line, as if he too is nestling down on his bed to chat with her. "Do tell."

The rustling reminds her that she's been sucked into long phone conversations with him before, despite a close physical proximity which practically eliminates any real need to talk on the phone at all, and the clock is ticking on seven, and she'd been contemplating making herself dinner before her sister called and set her evening off course.

They're proper friends now, her and James.

They're board game-playing, cat custody-sharing, 80s playlist-curating friends, who take drives together, talk nonsense together, and share ridiculous, you-had-to-be-there private jokes that prompt Sirius to tease them about their inevitable marriage. When she's fed up and tired after work, she plops on his couch with ice cream and whatever cheap, vaguely saccharine cocktail mix she can wrangle from the off licence down the road, he pays for a takeaway, and they watch box-sets together until one, or both, of them starts to grow drowsy. James was utterly appalled to learn that she had never seen _Parks and Rec,_ so they're currently in the middle of a binge-watch, halfway through season 3.

Now, James is appalled only by Lily's humongous crush on Ben Wyatt, though he has admitted to finding this easier to understand than her libidinous longing for Colin Firth.

"It's a long story," she says, running a hand over her hungry stomach, "best shared over food, of which I am in desperate need. Do you fancy going out for some dinner? You helped me get my crazy sister off the phone, which means of course that I owe you, so it's my treat if you're free."

"Oh." There's more rustling. "Dinner? Yeah. Yes. I can do dinner. Where'd you have in mind?"

"Depends on what you want. Anything you're particularly craving? I just need to throw some clothes on and I'm good to go whenever."

Lily is fully dressed—not that James has any way of knowing this—but she'll need to change her shirt to leave, and the devilish voice inside her ear that so often likes to make itself known in his presence may have compelled her to embellish a little.

"Ah. Hm. Craving. That's…" He hesitates. Maybe thinking. Maybe not. "Well...there's that Greek place on Tottenham Lane. Has Mary taken you there yet? Or we can always eat our body weights in McDonald's fries. That rarely ever goes wrong."

"I've never tried Greek food," she says thoughtfully, "but I've always wanted to, if you fancy popping that particular cherry."

There's a slight cough on the other end of the line, then a firm, quick tapping sounds from above her head— _rap, rap, rap._

"That's a 'yes, with delight' knock," he tells her. "Much different from the"— _THUMP, THUMP_ —" 'kindly but no thank you' knock. See?"

"What occasion would merit a 'kindly but no thank you' knock?"

"If you had said Domino's, for instance," James replies. "Or if Sirius ever, in any circumstance, offers to cook for you—though, actually, there's no need to be kindly about that. It's very simply a run-screaming-in-the-opposite-direction scenario."

"Domino's," says Lily coldly, "is a bastardization of all that is good about pizza, and I like you far too much to ever ask you to eat there. I like _myself_ too much to eat there."

A few more playful and vaguely melodic knocks sound from beside her head.

"That," James says, "is my 'Lily Evans, you are as clever and right as you are lovely' knock."

She beams like a smitten idiot, thankful that he can't see her blushing face, and returns the knocks with a few of her own, gently rapping the wall beside her ear with her knuckles. "Flattered as I am, I should call a halt to these proceedings now, or we'll never end up eating."

He laughs warmly. "Fair enough. Meet you downstairs in...ten? And in the meantime—" He pauses, and Lily knows him and his humour well enough now to have the inkling that he's setting himself up for something, as much by the dramatic pause as by the fact that she can practically hear the smile in his voice. Three more brisk knocks sound. "Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me."

Cheesy git. They listen to that song in the car.

"I'll take a broom downstairs with me," she solemnly promises. "Bye."

Lily hangs up the phone, clambers up from her bed and yanks open her wardrobe door as if she's found the entrance to Narnia and must set off on an adventure at once.

Such an occasion requires more than a meagre change of shirt.

Eight minutes later, she's managed to zip herself into a green summer dress that brings out the colour of her eyes just so, touch up her makeup and flit downstairs, congratulating herself on her speed, a giddy jumble of nerves jittering in her stomach. She settles into one of the lobby chairs with a toss of her hair and every effort to appear cool and poised, as if the prospect of going out for dinner with James Potter hasn't thrown her heart into a tremendous tailspin.

If the swiftness with which she got herself ready left her in any doubt as to how good she looks, those fears are tidily done away with when one of the Prewett twins—Fabian, she has learned, from numerous elevator trips—saunters into the lobby from outside and makes a beeline for her at once.

"Irish!" he cries in greeting, having come up with this asinine nickname one day after questioning her about her family and learning that her mum is an immigrant from Dublin. "If I'd known I was keeping you waiting, I would have come back sooner!"

In a calculated, roundabout way, he puts his feelers out, dancing around asking her if she'd be interested in spending the evening in his company, casually enquiring as to whether or not she's free tonight—which she clearly isn't, otherwise she wouldn't be waiting around in the lobby with her favourite earrings on—clearly hoping to weave her into a web of disappointing sexual gratification, which is extremely bothersome, but just about confirms that she must look fantastic.

Fabian is still talking when James strolls out of the elevator and catches sight of them both.

He stops in his tracks. Frowns.

"Hey," she says, and waves at him, but remains firmly in her seat. Salvation, thank goodness. "You took twelve minutes, you know."

"Considering at least eight of those minutes were taken up attempting to keep Algernon from following me out the door, I'm going to blame you." James's slow smile forms brightly enough, but his eyes still flicker with some question between her and Fabian. "Haven't the faintest how he always knows when I'm going to meet you. Have you secretly been knocking with him all this time?"

Lily's eyes widen slightly, tellingly, as she catches his gaze, and mercifully, a mutual understanding seems to land neatly between them. _Yes, this happening. Yes, I am aghast. Yes, I would indeed appreciate a rescue._

"How could you?" she says, feigning offence, and takes to her feet, her lips pursing into a would-be adorable pout. "You know you're the only person with whom I would knock. I thought I'd been very clear on that."

Fabian takes a step back from her armchair, his arms rising to fold across his chest, regarding James warily. "You two know each other?"

"We keep shared custody of a cat," James replies instantly. "Very serious business. He's a very special creature."

"James and I met after a drunken night out. I took my clothes off in his flat, he let me climb into his bed, and now here we are," says Lily brightly. "Cat parents. You know how it goes."

"Good to see you though, mate," James says affably. He simultaneously gives Fabian's shoulder a friendly pat while placing his other hand lightly on the small of Lily's back. "We're off to get food. Say hullo to your brother for me."

She can see the defeat in Fabian's face.

He has _absolutely_ jumped to the wrong conclusion, which is _absolutely_ fine, because that's _absolutely_ where Lily wanted his mind to go.

"Do _not_ let go of me until we can't see him anymore," she mutters to James under her breath, as he steers her away from Fabian and toward the revolving door at the front of the building. "Do you know how many girls he brings back here and abandons in the lobby?"

"The only thing you should run faster away from than Sirius and any kind of cooking ambition," James mutters back, "is a Prewett twin with amorous intentions." He gives her an amused side glance as he motions for her to enter the revolving door before him. "But if you ever see their sister Molly hanging around the lobby, do _not,_ under any circumstances, leave. I have never seen a woman so eviscerate a pair of poor sods with one well-put rant in my life. It is _thrilling_ to watch her go."

"Clearly, you never saw me as head girl at school," Lily replies, stopping just short of the door to throw him smile. "It takes a certain kind of talent to intimidate a bunch of idiotic teenage boys in a tartan skirt and a pair of knee-high socks, but I managed to pull it off admirably."

Whoever this Molly person is—not that Lily cares what James thinks of other women who may or may not have a gift for stripping men of their bones with a couple of well-placed words, but if she _did_ care _—_ she can make like Miss Perfect Pants Rosalind and exit this conversation.

Lily is not jealous of a woman she doesn't even know.

Not _much._

"I think you can intimidate anyone you'd like in just about anything," James says. "I met you when you were only donning a Little Mermaid bra and beer goggles, and you kept me in line." He motions for her to precede him out the door again. "A woman of many talents, Lily Evans is."

That, Lily reasons, is more than acceptable as compliments go, and likely not one he could level at Molly, who admittedly sounds like a pretty cool person.

They flagrantly abuse Fabian's efforts in the car, an activity that James delights in so much, Lily is starting to feel tremendously grateful to the friendlier Prewett twin for stopping by the lobby by the time they pull up at the restaurant. Hestia Vesta is situated quite close to their apartment building, which is fortunate for Lily, because her empty stomach is practically growling by the time they step inside and take in their surroundings.

The space is very prettily decorated, with chalk-white walls of scrubbed stone, electric blue fairy lights and cheerful ceramic tiles on the floor, but Lily barely has a moment to take it all in before the hostess—a plump, middle-aged woman with the boldest red lip she's ever seen a person attempt—springs out from behind her podium and throws her arms around James's middle.

"You!" she bellows, attracting the attention of many diners, once she has allowed him to escape her death grip. James is easily a foot taller than she is, but that doesn't prevent her from catching his face between her hands and landing a bright red lipstick print on each cheek.

"Me," James agrees.

"How long has it been since you've come to see me, boy?" The woman flings her arms around him once again. Squeezes like she's trying to make his head burst. _"Too_ bloody long, I would think! I've got half a mind to slap your skinny arse from here to Belgravia, and Sirius's, too."

"Hullo, Aunty Chara," James greets dryly, but gives the top of the woman's dark hair a bit of cuddle with his cheek before releasing her. "Not that I didn't pop in here for lunch just last week."

"That was at least a fortnight ago, don't tell fibs or your tongue will fall out," Chara scolds, then fixes Lily with a gaze of immense curiosity. "Who do we have here?"

"I'm Lily," she says, with a slight wave. "I'm a friend. Of James's, I mean. We're friends."

She recognises the sly, amused look in Chara's dark eyes for exactly what it is, understanding in that instant that she's poised on the verge of becoming the focus of much speculation and gossip. There is no hardier vulture than an overly-interested aunt.

Chara raises an inquisitive eyebrow at James. "A friend, she claims, but I've never seen a friend of yours who fills out a sundress quite as well as this one."

"That's only because you've never seen most of my mates in sundresses. I think Sirius is remotely offended." He looks properly silly with embarrassment but sticks his hands in his pockets and makes a decent attempt at getting a sighing, pointed air about him. "Be kind, Chara. Lily is my neighbour. Honestly. And she's never had Greek food! I am doing you both a _service_ here."

"I think it's perfectly kind to tell a beautiful girl how well she carries off a dress," Chara retorts, fixing Lily with a smile, "which is exceptionally, I might add. Far better than Sirius ever could." She jerks her head towards James. "Did _he_ tell you how nice you look in that dress?"

"No," says Lily sadly, playing along now, if only because it's funny to see James devolve further into hopelessness and despair, "he did not, and I put it on especially for the occasion. Can you _believe?"_

"Don't encourage this. You will rue the day," James mutters to her. But then, quicker, chastised, "You know you look lovely."

"He always assumes I know how lovely I look," she tells Chara, in a conspiratorial, just-between-us-girls kind of tone, "because it saves him the hassle of telling me himself."

Chara responds with a sad shake of her head.

"Lazy," she declares. "Wait until his poor mother hears about this."

James's eyes go wide. "Aunty, no. Mum doesn't need to hear a thing about this—"

"You know, I've never met his mum," says Lily. "I'd love to, though. Do you see her often? Does she come in here?"

Chara's eyes nearly pop out of her head. "You haven't met his _mother?"_

Lily shakes her head.

"Well." The smaller woman plants her hands on her hips. "Imagine a spoiled little prince not telling his own mother, who suffered through thirty-six hours of agonizing labour to bring him into the world because of that oversized head of his—"

"Thirty- _six?"_ James interrupts. "You know, that number gets suspiciously higher and higher—"

"I can't believe you wouldn't want your mum to know that you've met a nice girl, finally," Chara concludes, waving a hand towards Lily. "I'd want to show her off, if I were you. Those eyes and that pretty face, and I bet you're clever to boot, aren't you?"

"My brains are far more impressive than my looks," says Lily solemnly.

"Well, there you go," Chara says, as if that settles matters. "And such lovely red hair—James has always had a thing for redheads, you know, even when he was a boy watching cartoons—"

"Oh, God." James suddenly snatches up her hand, and Lily feels him tug firmly. "All right. That's enough. Lovely to see you, Aunty. We'll take the table in back. Cheers. Love you. Bye."

He leads Lily away from his aunt and towards the back of the restaurant at such a speed that she almost stumbles when she realises what he's doing, but she allows herself to be steered through the tables, because he's clearly quite flustered, and she may have taken the joke too far.

"You know that grabbing my hand and asking for a table in the back isn't going to do much to convince your aunt that we're _not_ a couple, right?" she reminds him, once they've stopped at a small, round table that's as far away from a waving, tittering Chara as possible.

"Trust me, the hasty escape was infinitely more preferable to the looming stroll down prepubescent wet dreams lane," James grumbles. "Chara's not even my real aunt—she's my mum's best friend, but she's known me since right after the alleged thirty-six hours and has positively no filter. I've made a terrible misstep here, but have recovered accordingly." He declares this with confident bluster, pulling out the chair for her to sit, though his blooming red cheeks tell a different tale. "The food is worth the busybody company, I promise."

"I don't mind the busybody company," says Lily cheerfully, and parks her bottom in the chair he has so graciously offered. "She obviously loves you, and more importantly, thinks I'm fabulous. What's not to like about that?"

"Oh, yes, it's lovely," James replies dryly, and takes his own seat, "until she shows up with mum in tow at your flat tomorrow for tea. And the next day. And the next day. And suddenly you've been adopted, and you don't even know how." He gives her a beleaguered look. "I've already got Algernon hanging around you like you've got perpetual pockets full of catnip. The Potter family accostings have got to stop somewhere."

"If you feel that strongly about keeping me away from your family, I'll abandon my three-point plan to marry you and assume full ownership of your bed," she says, picking up the menu, her eyes scanning over the specials at the front, "which is a shame, because I'm pretty sure my mattress is now actively working to hurt me."

"Haven't you already gotten one long-ago proposal? Greedy of you to be three-pointing another, even in the name of a better mattress."

"I'll get right on buying a new one after I treat you to dinner, you spoiled little prince."

He pulls a face at her teasing, then taps briskly at the menu. "Peruse if you'd like, but she's only going to come over here, ask if you've got any allergies, and then make you whatever she feels like."

"Fine by me, saves me the effort of picking through a bunch of delicious-sounding options."

A waiter approaches the table to pour them both some water and take their drink orders, and the lull in conversation gives Lily a chance to look at James, really take him in—her eyes raking greedily over his whirlwind of soft, coal-black hair, his smooth, brown skin, his perfect, irresistible mouth—and finds herself struck, for the millionth time in a matter of weeks, by how keenly her body responds and reacts and _wants_ when in his presence. He's tall and flushed and vaguely mutinous, sitting across from her at a candlelit table, and she finds herself smiling softly at him despite the tell-tale, pinkish hue she knows is blossoming freely along her chest and throat.

"Hi," she says, when the waiter leaves, an unbidden word that leaves her lips without her knowledge or consent.

His lips quirk up. "Hi." He fiddles absently with the silverware on the table. "Sorry about my mad family."

"Don't apologise—my family are all very repressed, and I'm entirely unsuited to it. I'd much rather have a couple of interfering aunts."

"You haven't got any devious dames hidden in the Evans family tree? With a wedding coming up, they're bound to jump out of the woodwork."

"They're never _in_ the woodwork," she says, tapping the table with her fingernails, "but they're not nearly as complimentary as your non-aunt, and quite alarmed by my lack of an engagement ring at my advanced age of twenty-four. Petunia's the good girl, see, not letting her ambitions stretch beyond snagging herself a husband."

"Husbands are all well and good, but you're on the _telly."_ He says this with a generous heap of starry-eyed reverence. "How does that not amount to some level of lustre and awe? Besides, haven't they seen you on stage? That should sort that, surely?"

"My parents have," she says slowly, "and my nan, and Petunia's been to at least one play, but mostly they don't really _get_ it, I think. My mum had really high hopes that I'd go to uni and make a huge success of myself, and my dad is _definitely_ entrenched in the 1930s way of thinking, waiting for me to find a man and give him grandkids, so I've been a bit of a disappointment to them both."

James's face pinches in some semblance of disapproval. "That's...rubbish. It only took one play for me to see you were made to be up there, and I'm hardly an expert. Maybe I _ought_ to stick Mum and Chara on you for a few days. They'll fluff you up incessantly—at first merely with endless gratitude that you've taken me on, but they'll recognise a kindred spirit quickly enough. Then there's no escaping their smothering charm."

"Kindred spirit?" She cocks an eyebrow at him. "Are you saying that _I'm_ a smothering kind of person? Because I'm definitely prepared to refute that _and_ remind you that Chara only thinks I've 'taken you on' because of this redhead fetish you never told me about."

"Well, now that's a flagrant lie," James objects. "I told you I was a fellow ginger enthusiast on the very night we met. Not," he's quick to add, "that that ought to make any redhead in a twelve-kilometre radius easy fodder for my family, but this is why you're kindred with them—you enjoy torturing me mercilessly far too much."

"Not every redhead, only the ones you take to your aunt's restaurant with you," she points out. "I can't say I blame them _that_ much—we are _kind of_ on a date, only not, because, well—context, I suppose."

The fork he's still playing with makes an abrupt clattering sound as he drops it to the table, then skittishly picks it up again. "A neighbourly date," he says. "Context is important—though I suppose in keeping with that, they likely should never learn we met while you were half-naked in my bathroom. Then my bed."

"What's this about your bed?" said Chara, appearing behind James with a notepad and pen in hand.

"Er." James's eyes flicker to his aunt, then to Lily, then to his aunt again. "Bed...bugs. They're awful. Really terrible. I'm starving. Lily, are you starving?"

"Yes," Lily smartly agrees. "Ravenous."

"Oh, I'm sure," says Chara lightly. She drops a hand to James's shoulder. "You'll have your usual?"

"Yes, please," James says, and hands over his menu. "I've told Lily she's best left at your whims. Best food comes out that way."

"I'll tell you what, how about I put together a little taster for you both? Bit of everything? That way your girlfriend can decide what she likes—that's something you'll need to do, dear, if you're planning on sticking with this one," she adds to Lily, smiling down upon her with an angelic benevolence. "His mum is Greek too, you see, and we're quite big on family events."

"She's not my—" James stops, sighs. Doesn't say _why do I bother?_ but embodies it all the same. "Yes, bit of everything. Wonderful. Thanks."

"Good boy, compliance is key," says Chara fondly. "Anything else you'd like?"

Lily and James both shake their heads no, and Chara stalks off, laughing to herself, no doubt overjoyed at the myriad possibilities of embarrassment James opened up before her when he made the mistake of leading Lily through the front door of her establishment.

Now that she mentioned it, though…

"So, not to continue with the evening's humiliation, but why _don't_ you have a girlfriend?" Lily asks him, laying one palm flat on the table, her head cocked inquisitively to one side. "I've wanted to ask for a while, because it seems a bit ludicrous to me that nobody's snapped you up."

"Perhaps I'm difficult to snap up," James hedges, shoulders lifting briefly. "Or...dunno. Time. Circumstance. Cat. Why haven't _you_? Floating in the same boat, aren't we?"

"There are two very good reasons why I don't have a boyfriend," she says flatly. "First, because most of the men I meet are garbage, and second, the only two blokes I've _really_ liked in the last few years were threatened by my former housemate until they ghosted me, something I _didn't_ find out until I bumped into one of them in a pub recently and he told me the whole bloody story."

James finally quits toying with the fork, leaving it sideways on the table as he frowns, deep lines settling between his eyebrows.

"This...is the same one who was obsessed with you?" he says, sounding unsure, as if this is something he's been debating bringing up for quite some time. "That you mentioned that night we got pizza?"

She nods, her mouth tugging to the side, a shudder of something unpleasant running down her spine at the memory. It's a keen, lucid feeling, and sadly unlikely to fade into a faint memory for many months to come.

Severus decimated Lily's trust in him, and in herself, to some extent.

But she can tell James the truth. He's nothing like Sev. Couldn't be more different.

"Yup," she says, after a moment has passed. "That was Severus. Tricky sort of person. I confronted him after Joshua—that's my more recent ex—told me what he'd been saying to strong-arm him into dumping me, which was namely a lot of empty threats, but he'd made calls to his company to lodge false complaints against him, and he has a few dodgy mates, dangerous people—as in, people I refused to even let in the flat because of the stuff they were involved in, and they'd given Josh a bit of hassle—anyway." She takes a breath in, holds it, releases it in a rush. "He got...upset, when I told him I knew what he'd been up to, and more upset when I told him that I didn't feel, well, the way he felt about me. Said some things. Threw a plate—"

"He _what?"_

"Not _at_ me, but in...my general direction, I suppose." She frowns down at the table. "Maybe...yeah, no, I'm not sure. I _hope_ it wasn't aimed at me, I guess, but it was enough to send me packing, in any case. I'd been making excuses for him for years, but there was nothing else to do but leave after that, so I moved in with Mary, all a big rush. He's still got a lot of my things in the flat and I've got no idea how I'm supposed to get them back."

"Fucking hell." James lets a sharp huff out of his nose, lips pinched tightly at the corners. He opens his mouth to say something, then closes it, the words never forming.

"Yeah," says Lily simply. "That's everyone's reaction."

He hesitates for a moment, then drops his hand over hers on the table, giving it a firm, warm cover.

"I'm sorry," he says, leaning his head in towards her, earnest and yet still looking a bit incensed. "That's...what a fucking wanker. Now I'm _doubly_ glad to have you next door. Thank god you got out of there."

A pleasant, tingling heat surges up in her chest, blooms across her face.

He's so sweet, and thoughtful, and his concern isn't in any way feigned, and she likes him _so much._

She wants to flip her hand beneath his so their palms touch, twine their fingers together. She refrains because she's sure that's pushing it too far, that it makes her feelings too clear, because James might want her like she wants him, or he might be really, _really_ committed to giving their friendship his very best effort, and it's much too dangerous to act on the former conclusion.

Lily can't take such a risk when she's still so bloody uncertain, and besides, this isn't the right time, the right mood, or the right conversation.

"I should have done it years ago, honestly," she says instead, and keeps her hand steady, tucked safe and tight beneath his larger, warmer one. "Everyone told me he was bad news, I just didn't want to believe it because we'd been friends since we were children, and he had _such_ a horrible upbringing, but I wouldn't accept that as an excuse for mistreatment from anybody else, so he shouldn't get a pass. Doesn't get a pass, now," she adds, with a firm nod to cement her own point. "Plus, it was nice to know that I was ghosted twice in a row because of _him,_ not because I'm inherently undateable. Josh even texted to ask me out again, couple of weeks ago, if you can believe that."

"Oh?" James's fingers slowly slip off hers. "So, you may not be in my single boat for long, then?"

"What, get back together with a coward who never thought to tell me that my best mate was _literally_ a psychopath, and didn't think enough of our relationship to spend so much as a minute fighting for it?" She scoffs, loudly, and resists every voice in her head that's yelling at her to take his hand back, lace her fingers through his—can't James see that she wants _him,_ not her worthless ex-boyfriend?—instead drumming her fingers on the table. "Not bloody likely. I told him where to go quickly enough."

James lets out a short laugh, his shoulders easing some with the sound. "Good for you. I didn't fancy going down in this single ship alone, anyway."

Their waiter comes along and delivers their drinks to the table while Lily considers the possibilities behind this statement, what she can make of it, what fun she can have that safely toes the line between friendship and...every other thing she wants from him.

Everything. She wants everything from him. His mind. His body. His affection. His _time._

But Lily's not about to upset the perfect balance they've achieved over the past few weeks. She's still embodying the role of Cool, Sexy Neighbour Girl, and _that_ girl wouldn't be so foolish as to play her messy, emotion-leaden cards so early in the game.

She picks up the straw that came with her drink, rips the top from its paper sheath, and dunks it into her cocktail.

"Careful with that kind of talk," she warns him, raising her piña colada to her lips. "My stomach is tragically empty, which means I'm two mouthfuls away from getting squiffy and suggesting a marriage pact. You know, in case we both find ourselves alone when we hit our thirties? I hear they're all the rage in movies."

"Who needs two mouthfuls?" James thrusts out his hand, quirking an eyebrow at her. "What shall it be, then? Thirty-some years of age and nothing to show for it but one tremendous cat, and we hitch ourselves together for life?"

 _Eager, aren't you,_ she wants to say, and then, _why are you eager?_

She takes a sip of her drink and sets it down, eyeing his outstretched hand with a trepidation that is entirely put-on, and entirely designed to buy her suddenly-pounding heart enough time to calm itself down.

"That depends," she says. "Are there any kids guaranteed with this deal? I'd like to have at least one, and we could probably make a cute baby."

"My hair, your eyes? It'd be a crime to waste those kinds of genetics." He wiggles his fingers in enticement. "Though you'll likely have to make sworn promises to Algernon that he'll always come first in your affections. Put those acting chops to work."

"Algernon won't expect me to pay deference to him over our child, because the child will be part _me,_ which means your cat will pay deference _to_ the child," she promptly reminds him, "and I'm not shaking on it without a half-decent proposal, so hop-to or I'll go home and make a pact with Sirius."

"You wouldn't hitch yourself to Sirius if it was a choice between him and the Grim Reaper," James accuses, but his hand does drop momentarily down to the table as he begins to scope out the area for some kind of proposal inspiration. "Let's see, let's see—ah." He looks up at her, flashes a cheeky smirk, then plucks her discarded straw wrapper from where it sits scrunched in the middle of the table.

With quick, deft fingers, he twists the wrapper around until it's tied into a neat, finger-sized circle, then polishes it off by tying the spare ends into a quaint little bow.

He clears his throat, holds out his hand again, palm up this time. His fingers wiggle in invitation once more.

"If you'd please," he says.

She's definitely blushing, and he's definitely noticed—against the shining white backdrop, and beneath the twinkling lights, her lily-white skin has nowhere else to hide—but she places her hand in his, drawing herself up in her seat. "Do continue."

His fingers curl securely over hers.

"Lily Evans," he says grandly, foolishly, "light of my heart, love of my life, keeper of my cat...we may have only known each other for…" He stops, squints. Quickly gives up the maths. "...some short time, but by the harrowing age of thirty, we shall surely know all there is to know and then some. It's a tremendously old age, after all." He sits up straighter, leans in closer, hazel eyes shining with jovial amusement amid the feigned solemnity. "Will you do me the very serious honour of binding yourself to me for all eternity, mothering our near _illegally_ attractive children, putting up with whatever knocking or DJing life may require...in approximately six years or so?"

She lifts her other hand—the one that isn't resting comfortably in his, waiting patiently for a makeshift paper ring to grace its finger, happy to be held and fussed over until further notice—and places it over her heart.

"All these weeks, living next door, listening to your mad housemate murder his way through a repertoire of dodgy pop songs, and all the romantic drives home from my crappy job while I try not to fall asleep in your car," she sighs dramatically, "and I thought you'd never ask. You've made me the happiest woman in Crouch End, James Potter—absolutely, yes, I will marry you. In about six years or so."

James grins—a big, silly, lip-quirked, white-toothed grin—and tugs her hand forward, bussing a huge, smacking kiss across the back of her knuckles. It's too quick a brush—he's already pulling away, holding her fingers more daintily within his grasp as he shimmies the paper ring onto her finger. It's a bit too big, but that doesn't seem to matter to him.

"You have made me the happiest of men," he says. "In about six years or so."

"Six years," she agrees, drawing her hand back to admire his work. "Hardly any time at all, really."

"Do we order champagne?" James asks, head tilted in question. "Or are cocktails enough for delayed engagement pacts?"

"Since I offered to pay for dinner, cocktails are absolutely enough," she says, with a laugh. "Though I would say this ring is probably enough to wrangle us a free dessert."

"Do _not_ ," James says emphatically, "let my aunt see that. Unless you want every family member I have or have ever _thought_ to have descending upon this restaurant in less than twenty minutes. You cannot even joke about it. Don't you _know_ how much Greeks like weddings?"

"Are you saying," says Lily dramatically, leaning forward across the table, "that you're _ashamed_ of me? Too ashamed to introduce your _future wife_ to every member of your family, plus a bunch of other people who _aren't_ your family but who make you call them 'aunt' and bother you about your romantic prospects?"

"I am saying," James replies, "that as your husband, six years in the future, it is my job—nay, my _privilege_ —to protect you from outside forces set to cause you harm. Harm like headaches. And a severe lack of privacy. And _people_ , everywhere, when all you really wanted of this evening was to get a quick meal." He nods his head sagely. "A secret engagement is better for everyone involved, I assure you."

"If you insist, I guess I can get on board with a secret engagement, they're sexier anyway," she agrees, and pulls the paper ring off her finger, setting it down next to her water glass. "Best keep your aunt from seeing that—though I _do_ intend to cherish it forever, so don't let me forget it when we leave."

"I'd be tragically insulted if you did." James takes a sip of his water. "Terrible start to a secret engagement, that."

"What engagement?" says Chara, bounding suddenly into view.

Much to her delight, Lily learns, following a long, shamefaced, and stuttered explanation of their little game, many delicious platefuls of flavourful Greek food, and an endless barrage of teasing from James's gleeful, not-quite-aunt, that she was absolutely, categorically correct.

They _do_ get a free dessert.

* * *

James is just finishing polishing up the draft agenda for the programme's next board meeting when the insistent clatter of knocks interrupts his morning productiveness.

"Oi! Door!" he hollers, spotting a stray typo in the memo's last line and absently wondering with each brisk backspace what Sirius is having delivered this early in the morning.

It's barely gone nine, but as _community feuding_ successfully becomes _community funding_ , no further information or acknowledging response is provided. Whatever it is (whoever it is?), the git has likely not heard its rapped arrival from his current location holed up in his bedroom _—_ where some bass-heavy cacophony is already vibrating the walls _—_ nor James's shouts from the living room attempting to alert him to the same. Affirming this, the knocking soon goes again.

 _Thumpthumpthump._

James sighs, pushing his laptop aside and slowly rising to his feet, the vague exasperation cut only by a slice of rueful amusement as it becomes increasingly apparent how his body has instinctively reacted to the innocuous knocking: heart jumping in his chest, limbs tensing in gleeful anticipation, dopey smile spreading across his face. And all this, regardless of the fact that the curt, commonplace sound of knuckles rapping on surface has _clearly_ come from the flat's front door, not the wall in James's bedroom.

There is often quite a bit of knocking coming from James's bedroom nowadays.

It's their thing, see, the knocking.

They have _things_ now, he and Lily.

The dopey grin spreads wider.

James lets his lips do as they will, ambling toward Sirius's bedroom with a lighter spring in his step. Life has grown far simpler since he'd given up trying to play dictator to these inevitable reactions, the varying quirks of adoration, the telling little absurdities that seem to rule his days and make him feel simultaneously like laughing and groaning. He's laid down his sword, waved his white flag, quit driving himself mad over what any of it means, or should mean, or positively _can't_ mean. Oh, he still has his Dictates and his neighbourly blockades, certainly, but they are mere safety nets in his newly secured structure of friendship and fancying. And wouldn't you know it _—_ with the deafening questions dialed down to mute, it's _shocking_ what dignified sanity a bloke can reclaim. At the very least, there is no longer a sense of grappling panic, of lingering potential calamity, attached to his every word to her, his every enamoured swoon.

(There are, admittedly, still quite a few enamoured swoons.)

It's all grown cooler, calmer, easier.

It's all...Lily.

 _Lily._ Her name in his head still does silly things to his stomach, but that's grown more familiar, more manageable, over the weeks too. Because it _has_ been weeks now _—_ weeks, of getting to know her, of her getting to know him, of the careful but heady progression from _Lily Evans—_ untouchable homebreaker, masterful murder victim, fanciful fantasy—to Lily Evans—charming neighbour, steadfast mate, promised wife (six years in the future).

Lily, who enjoys the colour yellow, but not mustard or smelly cheeses; who lavishly praises his tastes in music and board games, but who eyed him with the sort of censure typically reserved for puppy punters when he admitted he sometimes reads the end of a book first; who _finally_ seems to have reached the point where she doesn't need to flush and stammer half-hearted objections every time he texts her in the morning to inquire if she needs a ride to work, who now instead shows up in the lobby with a travel mug of the strong tea he prefers and sometimes a breakfast pastry she's happy to split before climbing into his car and chattering happily the whole way to Angel. (Take _that,_ Deathtrap.)

Lily, who he no longer needs to stalk in common areas or ambush with calculated Nods, who instead spends casual evenings cuddling his cat, and making fun of terrible television with him, and displaying her _wildly_ competitive streak as they battle Sirius and Mary for Third Floor Charades Dominance. (James and Lily are, of course, the long-reigning champions, a nearly unstoppable pair...save for that one time he could not _possibly_ have been expected to get _The Silence of the Lambs_ from the "spot on" Hannibal Lecter impression she'd _thought_ she'd been giving, but which really only looked like she'd eaten bad sushi. This has naturally not stopped her from bringing up what she perceives to be his greatest failure at every vaguely relevant moment.)

Lily, who shares a bedroom wall with him, and who seems to enjoy his playful taps on their communal partition to say good morning, or good night, or a million other things.

A few days ago, he'd listened for nearly twenty minutes as she ran through some kind of monologue, her crisp, emotive voice reverberating through the thin wall. She had it memorized quickly enough, but seemed to be working through how to project the climactic line—a sorrowful, anguished "how _could_ you?" versus an angered, enticed " _how could you!"_ or a stronger, stiffer "How. Could. You."

If James ever needed more evidence that Lily Evans was a theatrical revelation, this would have been enough. Hearing her labour over her craft was utterly fascinating, but it very quickly became apparent that the last option was the way to go. When she got back round to that version, he rapped insistently on the wall. _That one, that one, that one!_

Moments later, his phone pinged with a text.

 **That one?** she'd written.

James grinned, sending back a dozen thumbs-up emojis and—lingering over it for a second—one heart-eyes.

She ran through a few more variations on the chosen stronger, stiffer version, and James liked the second, where her build-up to it was quicker, more insistent. He knocked enthusiastically at that one.

Another ping: **Angling to be added to the Olivier thank you list?**

 **yes,** James wrote. **just b4 queen and country**

 **Bold move, usurping the queen.**

 **some mutiny every now and then is good for her**

 **Will keep that in mind.** Then: **Thank you,** and a kissing face emoji.

James had stared slavishly at that kissing face for longer than it had taken her to perfect the speech.

Right. So he's still a _bit_ of a lovestruck ponce—what of it? At least now he's _simultaneously_ a bit of a cherished mate, and that's what counts. That's what he'd wanted. That's what will separate fate from folly. And he's going about it exactly as he'd set to: _slow,_ and _neighbourly_ , and has he mentioned _slow_? And if sometimes—

Well.

If sometimes—maybe— _perhaps_ —he thinks that he is not the only one counting down the seconds until they can see each other again, rapt for any wisp, any passing glance, any vague note of familiar laughter hanging in the air or filtering in through a thin wall…

It's a strong maybe.

He doesn't know for sure.

He's got spotty evidence at best.

A few looks here. A particularly flirty comment there. The way she always, no matter what, seems to find a way to touch him, light and casual as that touch may be.

She'd jokingly agreed to get engaged to him, and still occasionally flitted around with the paper ring on her finger, grinning and teasing.

But it's a lot of little somethings that may amount to nothing. She's coy and fun and a laugh. Maybe that's all this is for her. He doesn't know. And even if he _did_ know, that doesn't mean they need to rush to the finish line here. They can both enjoy the scenic route. Much safer, the scenic route. Who doesn't fancy one of those every now and again?

And in the meantime, James will simply get giddy every time Sirius has breakfast delivered, and spend increasingly longer periods of time each evening perusing the Asos website.

(Which, despite her protests, has proven Lily _is_ indeed a bit of a swimsuit model—albeit one for a company that seems to think they need to saturate her coloring to blinding paleness and airbrush her fine bones into strange prominence in order to sell product. But the pictures _do_ capture her smile and playful humour, which James will admit to gawking at freely for...some lengths of time.)

Shaking his head ruefully, James pushes aside thoughts of swimsuits and smiles and gives his own brisk knock on his mate's bedroom door. The music continues to pulse, but James reckons he may have gotten some muffled answer, so he carefully prods the door open.

"Oi." He pops a tentative head into the room, naturally wary of what he may find inside. "Door."

"Woosit?" is Sirius's distracted reply, though when James tucks his head fully inside, he's relieved to see that Sirius is not thrashing around the room playing air guitar in the nude, nor experimenting with Coke and Mentos again, because "why does it _do_ that?"

Instead, he's lying on his bed, semi-respectably dressed, fully engrossed in his phone.

"Dunno." James kicks aside the haphazard heap of laundry blocking the door, then swings the portal open wider. He has to near shout to be heard over the blast of AC/DC. "Whatever you ordered."

"Didn't order anything."

"Whoever you invited over?"

"Nope."

"Then who is it?"

Sirius stares sardonically over the top of the phone. "Dunno, mate. Shall I use my magic powers to figure it out?"

James rolls his eyes, keen to flip back an equally dry rejoinder, but it quickly becomes apparent that Sirius has already tuned out of this conversation. His eyes are back at his phone, fingers arched over the display, lips curled in satisfaction.

When his face suddenly alights with obvious pleasure and his fingers begin jabbing feverishly at the screen, James regards the scene with growing suspicion.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

Sirius barely flinches. His eyes remain fixated on the screen, fingers flying over the keys. "Nothing."

Right. And James is a purple woolly mammoth.

"Fucking hell." He takes another step into the room. "Aren't you on probation? Customer service Tweeting only?"

"'We're sorry to hear the product didn't meet your satisfaction, please contact our service line'?" Sirius scoffs with untempered derision. "Please. That's intern shit. Besides, that probation is arbitrary at best. Your dad thought my Twitter war with Farage was _hilarious_. 'We fix hair, not broken souls' was some of my best work."

"The Sleekeazy Board of Directors felt otherwise," James puts in dryly, and wonders which of the stodgy old codgers will be pulling their hair out over Sirius's antics this time—if it _could_ be kept to only a single member. Sirius had once taken on Viagra, and the male half of the board had burst into blustering hysterics (the females, as James recalled, had cackled appreciatively). "Who is it this time? If you're getting stroppy with KitKat again, even Dad is not going to defend you. You know how much he likes those."

"KitKat." Sirius harrumphs with superior haughter. "Please. They're low-hangings."

"You're going to get fired," James warns, though the familiar threat is undoubtedly falling on deaf ears. They have this conversation at least once every fortnight, and will likely continue to do so for as long as Sirius still believes Social Media Manager is synonymous with Sleekeazy Twitter Troll. "Even blatant nepotism will only save your arse so many times—"

 _Thumpthumpthump._

"Get the door," Sirius drolls, fingers—lord help them all—moving swiftly again. "Waitrose and I will settle this like men."

"If you get us banned from Waitrose, I will disown you," James declares, but knows better than to stand around and argue about it now. Sirius will Twitter row with whoever he wants to Twitter row with, and people will screenshot and meme it _just_ enough to keep him in a job, even though he regularly incites spats between public figures, household brands, and snippy housewives alike, making a mockery of the good Sleekeazy name.

All in a day's work.

James sighs, turning out of the doorway and wiping his hands of the whole mess. He'll ring Dad later and let him handle it. Sirius _sometimes_ listens to Fleamont. Every fifth or sixth attempt, anyway.

"Coming, coming," James grumbles, as the knocking goes again. Whoever's on the other side, they're a dedicated sort. If it's just some git selling pots and pans door to door, James will give them a _stern_ talking to, that's for sure.

"Fucking hell. Keep your pants on!" He reaches the flat door, grabs the handle, swings it open—

—and just nearly misses being thumped in the head by Lily, whose hand is already lifted to give the wood another firm pound.

Lily, who is...who _is_...

"Hi," she says urgently, breathlessly. "I need you."

 _I need you._ James looks at her—then does _not_ look at her. Looks anywhere, frankly, but at her. The ceiling. The floor. The vague bit of air just over her shoulder. He _cannot,_ in the most explicit of terms, keep his eyes directly on her person for long, because there are times when he can gaze at her, and there are times when he _cannot_ gaze at her, and moments in which she is standing in the threshold of his flat doorway, soft skin shining, hair dripping wet, white shirt damp, _clearly_ not wearing a bra, saying things like _I need you,_ are firmly in the latter half of that conundrum.

James breathes through his nose. Or tries to. He really, really does.

"Good morning," is what he somehow manages.

She glances quickly from side to side, taking in both ends of the corridor, apparently unaware of his present state. "Can I come in and explain?" she asks. "If anyone comes out and sees me like this, they're going to think I'm returning from a really regrettable night."

Wonderful. Now James is thinking of nine hundred thousand regrettable things he could do with her.

(Approximately eight hundred and forty thousand of those have some relevance to the pinched tips of her nipples he can _very clearly see_ in her clinging wet shirt, but that is neither here nor there.)

He clears his throat, prays for strength, and pushes the door farther open in welcome. "A regrettable jaunt through an early morning rainstorm?"

"Oh, god, you don't even know the half of it. I'm in the shower just now, right?" She nudges past him with a big expulsion of breath—there is a definite brush of her against him that could have easily been avoided if she'd only stepped to one side—and tucks a lock of very wet hair behind her ear. "Just me and my sponge, innocently attempting to bathe, trying to live my life, and then there's this _spluttery_ sound, and the water's freezing cold all of a sudden, and then it's just...gushing." She throws her hands out wide to indicate the carnage. _"Everywhere._ You know the pipe that connects the shower head to the wall?"

"I think it's called a shower arm," James says, because he and maintenance requests are very tight friends, and he needs the comfort of his very tight friends in trying times like these.

"Well, whatever it is, pipe, or arm, or whatever, it's broken, because there's no water coming from the shower head, it's all coming out of the bit where it meets the wall, and I haven't even managed to wash my hair," Lily explains, and sighs as if she's in tremendous anguish. "Would you mind _terribly_ if I used yours now, and maybe for the next couple of days? Mary's sending an email to the housing company to ask for an emergency repair but she says they always take forever to respond to anything."

James wants to huff in offense—he does not take _forever._ He takes a respectable few days, as to keep the tenants on their toes—but since several things preclude her from being aware of this, he musters past that to focus on the actual request.

Lily.

In his shower.

Where she will bathe.

In his _shower._

For several days.

Can't she ask for something a tad easier? Like world peace? Or the moon?

"Asking permission this time, are you?" he jibes, because that is what he does when he's on the brink of blindingly uncomfortable physiological and emotional tension. "Because you've had a pretty solid record of just strolling on in, you know."

 _"Oi!"_ she lightly admonishes, and takes a lazy swipe at him, the back of her hand colliding gently with his shoulder. "I know you _think_ that happens all the time, but all but one of those were your wildest dreams, mate. No cheek while I'm wet and cold. That needs to be a rule."

James will second that rule quite firmly, because a cold Lily is a...particularly _perky_ Lily. As mentioned. Not that he is looking. Because he is _not_. Also as mentioned.

"My cheek is quite hard to regulate," he says, lifting his hands in feigned helplessness. "But I suppose in compromise I will let you use my shower—if you don't mind the overwhelming stench of Sirius's body wash. You may prefer the wall spigot shower after a few minutes in that."

"I saw Eddie naked in my bathroom yesterday," says Lily flatly. "He's got hair on his back. _Hair._ On his back. Frankly, I don't care if Sirius _drinks_ Drakkar Noir at this point."

"Dirty pants _and_ back hair? How hasn't Eddie been kicked to the curb yet?" James hesitates a moment, then places a guiding hand on the dip of Lily's lower back, nudging her toward the bathroom. Defaming Eddie has become a favorite pastime around this corner of the third floor, as Mary's bedroom buddy seems as unavoidable as he is unbearable these days. There is familiar comfort in Eddie mockery. "Is that what this is, then? Cry plumbing disaster because you want to escape Eddie and his fur? I bet your shower is fine."

"It just figures that the first bloke I see naked in nearly two years doesn't even look good with his top off," she says grumpily, allowing him to steer her where she needs to go. "Now, on top of that, you accuse me of lying. Ta."

"Lying for self-preservation," James clarifies, and bites his tongue before he finds himself offering to begin stripping down to quell her naked man drought in a more satisfying manner. Likely, a slow striptease does not qualify as a slow relationship move. "That's a plenty good reason to prevaricate. I'd tell tales of faulty shower arms and sputtering water rushes, too."

"You and your big words, Potter," she sighs. "Oh-so-impressive, you are, but were I ever _so_ traumatised by Eddie's hairy body that I needed to see your beautiful face to recover from the fright, I wouldn't break my favourite part of the flat to do it."

He won't read into the fact that she's just suggested his face—his _beautiful_ face—is some kind of balm to the perils of a housemate's grimy guest. Their footsteps pad across the hallway rug. He doesn't know why he's followed her toward the bathroom. Soon enough she's going to realise it too, and undoubtedly rib him mercilessly about it. "No need to _shower_ me with your compliments, Evans. I've already said you can wash the Eddie away."

"That's another rule I need to start enforcing—no puns before 11 a.m.," she says, stopping by the bathroom door, then eyes him rather strangely. "Is there any reason why you're coming with me? Do you think I'll need you to show me how to use it, or are you just hoping that I'll invite you in with me?"

He probably shouldn't answer that.

"You've had some harrowing times in this bathroom," he defends instead. "I'm here for moral support. You should be very grateful, I think."

"Actually, I met _you_ in this bathroom, so...maybe the only good thing that's happened to me in months?" she reminds him, and James's heart misses a beat. "But whatever you need to tell yourself to pretend you're not a perve."

James is good at pretending. He's gotten so bloody good at pretending a million different things, and only half of those have perverted intents. She will not fluster any of those out of him, no matter that meeting her in this bathroom had been...equally the best of things for him. Maybe _the_ best thing, period. He doesn't know yet. He's still figuring it out. And she can't _rush_ him into sorting it out sooner with her damp clothes and her witty jokes and her _you're the only good thing to happen to me in months._

If his pulse would just quit humming in giddy delight, they'd be just fine.

"I'm not the one pretending to have a broken shower to shed my clothes in the other person's bathroom," he shoots back. Two can play this game. "So who's the real perve here?"

"Well, you've _definitely_ been staring at my boobs this whole time, so...still you."

Bugger.

"Not the _whole_ time," he mutters, but they're in the doorway of the bathroom now, so there's really nowhere else for him to go unless he is indeed angling for an invitation inside...which is not something he should be doing. Yet. Probably. He needs to change the subject. "Are you certain it's the arm of the shower that's gone wrong? If anything really _is_ wrong, that is. I still have very little evidence one way or the other."

"No, it's not the arm, it's the Achilles tendon," she says, her tone dry.

He lifts an eyebrow. "Now who's being cheeky? And here I was about to offer to take a look."

"Why? Because I called you out for looking at these"—she points to her chest—"so now you've decided to feign an interest in my plumbing to distract me?"

"Not to put a _wrench_ in your plans to seduce me with your wet shirts and dirty talk," James retorts, smiling at her exasperated huff, "but I thought I'd be helpful and not merely a palate cleanser to erase your sordid images of naked Eddie. I know a thing or two about plumbing."

Which is actually true—he knows that the pipe thing connecting the head to the wall is called a shower arm. And he knows how to call a plumber when things like the shower arm break.

One, two.

Truthful to the finest point, James Potter is.

If she was of a mind to further explore her perfectly correct suspicions regarding the preferred direction of his gaze, this tidbit is sufficiently diverting enough to make her drop the subject. There is a delicate lift of her eyebrows, the beginnings of a sentence that never makes it out of her mouth, and a sigh. "I don't—no, you've already done me too many kindnesses."

"Think of it as a universal kindness," James presses, ignoring the railing questions in his head. _(What are you doing? You know fuck all about plumbing. One, two! What is happening here?)_ "I'm just trying to kick you out of my bathroom so Sirius can have this requisite seven hours to do his hair. Plus, we've got shared walls and pipes. If yours has gone wonky, it could back up into ours."

Does plumbing work like that?

The fact that James doesn't know is probably very telling about why he should _not_ be offering his plumbing services.

 _Quit while you're ahead, arsehole._

But instead he finds himself crossing his arms smugly over his chest, as if he's served her an unbeatable argument.

"You spend longer doing your hair than Sirius," she quietly counters, looking up at him in a soft, fond, distracting kind of way. "And there's a thing called reciprocity, you know. It's already unfair that you drive me to work so often and you won't even let me give you petrol money. There _has_ to be something I can do for you."

"You are doing something. You're being my friend even though I pun before 11 a.m. and occasionally accidentally ogle your chest." He tilts his head in question. "Do you always keep this kind of ledger in your head?"

"Only when I'm the one underperforming," she admits, but the grey cloud over her head seems to pass, and she smiles at him. "You are an honest-to-goodness Prince Charming and I don't deserve you, but I'm really glad that we're mates."

Mates.

They're _mates._

Even as James knows this—hears her say it, right there, softly and happily and _directly_ —he melts into a puddle inside. Mate or otherwise, he _always_ melts to a puddle when she says things like that. She's too kind, too bright, too easily pleased by him, even as she takes any kind of shit he attempts to serve her and whips it back at him with a laugh. He wants to be worthy of it. Wants to earn the smiles she gives him, the faith she always seems to hand over after a bit of good-hearted nudging. Wants her to be able to come into his flat with her faulty showers and her wet t-shirts, and to be able to swoop right in and fix things for her.

Maybe he _can_ fix it.

If not the undefined state of their relationship, at the very least her shower.

He's not _horrible_ with maintenance. And tinkering with plumbing is nothing compared to surviving Dicates, right?

James reckons he's okay pretending that's the case.

"Don't start heaping on the platitudes just now," he still has sense enough to warn her. "I haven't managed to fairytale fix anything yet. I'll just grab some tools"—which he _does_ , funnily enough, have in the flat, since Mum had presented him with a box filled with shiny new ones when he'd first purchased the building, though it was very clear from Euphemia's vague cackling as she passed it over to him that she'd _love_ to see the day her son attempted to wield any one of the many fangled instruments therein—"and we'll see what can be done, yeah?"

"Even if I wanted to stop you, I don't think that I could," she admits, with a laugh. "You go and...do whatever you need to do. I have a long-standing date with your shower to get to."

James nods, focusing on broken showers, not Lily-filled showers. For the betterment of them all.

She takes a step toward him, away from the bathroom. Then another. Then another.

James stumbles back. "Er. Shower's that way?"

She gives him a look. "I said I'd _tolerate_ Sirius's stench body wash, not that I was willing to lather myself in it. I have to fetch my things. And someone needs to let you into the flat. Unless—I mean, you really don't need to look at it. We can just wait for the building—"

"No, no. It's fine!" He waves a gallant hand. "Lead the way. Lemme just—grab a few things—"

He needs that toolbox.

And his phone. He _really_ needs his phone.

Leaving Lily lingering in the hallway, he speeds into his bedroom, finding his phone charging on the bedside table. He shoves that in his back pocket, then plops quick, musing hands on his hips. The toolbox is a bit more of a locational challenge, but he's _almost_ certain it's in the back of his closet. Algernon, curled up in his usual furry heap atop the bed, blinks a bored look at James that clearly says, _You useless cur_. The fact that the cat wants to be so far removed from this situation that he didn't even immediately dart out of the room at the sound of Lily's voice to attack her for cuddles is likely an ominous indicator. But useless cur or otherwise, a cry of victory would not be entirely out of place as James does indeed spot a flash of the deep green toolbox peeking out from beneath a hefty pile of football equipment in his closet. He grabs it by the plastic handle and yanks it out of the dark depths. There's brisk metallic clattering as it's moved, which bodes well for a toolbox. Or so every DIY television show James has ever watched would have him believe.

Algernon lets out a purring scoff, but James ignores it.

"All right. Got it. Let's take a look," James announces, ambling out of his room with false bravado, toolbox swinging at his side.

Lily eyes him—and it—for a moment, before her lips quirk slightly.

"Nice toolbox," she says.

"Thank you." James gives it another metallic shake. "On to it, then?"

She nods, spinning on her heel and making toward the flat door, James following dutifully along behind her.

"Mary's left to meet with Eddie somewhere," she explains as they exit his flat and move into the corridor. The three-step gap between their flat doors is traversed briskly, and she jimmies her keys into her flat locks, twisting until the door pops open. "Morning reprieve."

"Let's just hope Eddie hasn't left any hairy gifts behind," James says, entering after her. This flat has become nearly as familiar to him as his own in the past few weeks. Someone must have tidied up recently—likely Lily. Mary's generally more keen on making the messes than sweeping up after them—because the rooms have a fresh look. They pass by the open living room door on their way to the bathroom, and James spots the book he lent Lily stacked neatly atop the side table besides a pile of recipes ripped out from various magazines. He'll have to attempt to wrangle an invitation when Lily finally decides to try her hand at one of them.

Hot steam and condensation still hangs in the bathroom as the two of them enter, and Lily lets out a hefty sigh as they approach the shower.

"My poor darling," she says, and strokes the tiled walls with much the same beloved affection she gives Algernon. Her fingers skitter back down to her side before she reaches out again, this time to grab a few bottles tucked into the neat little baskets she and Mary have set up to hold their shower things. James smells coconut.

Hugging them in the crook of her arm, she takes a step back and throws the water on with a quick yank of the knob. Immediately, there's an ugly sputtering sound and water begins to shoot and leak out of the pieces affixing the shower arm to the wall. They both jump back.

"See?" She turns the water off again. "And you called me a liar."

"Profuse apologies," James mutters, but his stomach has sunk somewhere in the vicinity of his toes. He doesn't know what he'd been expecting—to come in here and see the shower magically repaired? To be able to give the pipe a cursory twist with one of his foreign tools and, voila, Plumber James saves the day?

He hopes his furrowed brow looks more competently contemplative than blisteringly baffled.

Whichever he manages, Lily still looks dubious. "It's a lost cause, isn't it?"

"No, no. Not just yet," James blatantly lies. "I'll see what I can do."

Lily drops her hand onto his shoulder, gives it a sweeping rub. "Thank you," she says, and smiles at him again, spreading warmth all through his insides. "Need anything else?"

 _A vague sense of how plumbing works? Your deep love and affection regardless?_ But to her, James only says, "Nope. Enjoy your shower." He hands her his keys to get back into his flat.

She takes them, and with one last lingering pat to his shoulder, exits the bathroom.

Leaving James alone.

To fix her shower.

Which he has no bloody idea how to do.

The second he hears the flat door close behind her, he's grappling for his phone. He's clumsy with it, bobbling momentarily, but manages to catch it before it crashes to the bathroom floor in a likely prophetic smashing. He pulls up his contact list and scrolls quickly through until he gets to the M's.

He finds the contact he wants, jabs the button to start a call, and brings the phone to his ear just as it clicks through.

One ring. Two.

 _Answer. Answer, answer, answer_ —

The line goes silent for a moment. No ringing. No greeting. Then— _thank bloody god_ —a dull, plaintive voice fills the other side.

"Hello."

"Myrtle!" James nearly cheers. "Hi there. It's James Potter."

A sulking little sigh sounds on the other end of the line. "I know that. Your name comes up."

Right. Makes sense. "Listen." James keeps his voice as light and friendly as possible. "I've got a bit of a plumbing problem over at the building that I was hoping—"

A loud, anguished huff.

James pauses. "Myrtle? All right?"

"No one ever calls just to say hello," the woman complains, the clear whinging mope in her tone. "It's always 'my shower's doing this' or 'my toilet's spewing that.'"

"Well." James clears his throat. "You _are_ a plumber, Myrtle."

A wail of insulted anguish unleashes. "That is completely unfair! Positively _unconscionable!_ No one ever understands me! I'll have you know that I am _so much more—"_

James winces, pulling the phone from his ear and sighing as Myrtle's moaning kicks it up a notch. Honestly, if she wasn't such a wiz with pipes and toilets, James would not put up with her and her near constant griping. But Myrtle was a plumbing genius, magicked them fixed like she lived in them, and was cheap to boot, not to mention that her... _unique_ personality made it so she was often free on short notice. So he kept her on his vendor list, enduring her...peculiarities.

He lets her wail out her protests and condemnations until she settles herself back into her usual pout.

"You are completely correct, Myrtle," he placates into the silence. "So ungrateful. But look—I'm going to send you a quick video of this leak we have here. Maybe you can...give a few troubleshooting tips? Then come in next week to make sure I haven't made a muck of it? You're so good with these things. And I know you're likely dead busy. Just a quick few instructions. Please?"

She makes a faint preening noise, clearly enjoying his begging.

"I suppose," she finally relents.

James lets out a quick breath of relief. "Good. Wonderful. You're such a star, Myrtle. I'll just text it in a sec…"

He steps back from the shower, flipping the water back on and taking a quick video of the sputtering disaster. If anything, it seems to have gotten worse. Or maybe that's just James's panic talking. Either way, he forwards it to Myrtle through text, and waits a few seconds as she views it.

"Hm." Another sulky sigh. "It's a leak."

James rolls his eyes. Even _he_ knew that. "Reckon I can patch it up until you can come take a better look?"

More glooming. More haughty sniffs.

"It doesn't look like it's leaking inside the wall," she reluctantly concedes _._ "You'd have to remove the back piece to see. Maybe— _maybe_ —you can fix it. The pipe may just need teflon tape. Or you might need to be rid the piece altogether. There should still be some spare shower arm pipe in the maintenance closet. Replace it—"

"Replace it?" James repeats in mild alarm. "How do I do that?"

Myrtle bristles at the interruption. "With tools."

James wants to give a sulky sigh of his own. "Yes, thanks. I sorted that bit."

There's a long pause on the other side of the line.

 _Too_ long a pause.

Uh-oh.

"Well, then I suppose you can 'sort' out the rest of it too, can't you?" Myrtle snaps, the annoyed huff now morphed into a full-on stroppy rail. Shit. Alert, alert! Myrtle Meltdown. "Ungrateful men. Ungrateful _everyone_. I _am_ dead busy, you know. I have so many important things to do, and you've just _rang me up_ to _complain_ and _pester_ and _steal money—"_

"It's not that at all!" James cuts in again, desperate to backpedal. "Really, Myrtle. I'm so appreciative. You're so brilliant. If you could just tell me—"

"Go look it up on YouTube, Mr. Fix-It!" Myrtle yells shrilly, and then there's silence.

 _Distinct_ silence.

James pulls the phone from his ear to see the final call time blinking on the screen.

She's hung up on him.

Right. James sighs. So much for that.

Though…

He pauses.

Well...there are _worse_ ideas, surely?

He can't—or could he? Sirius once taught himself how to play the opening instrumental of "Toxic" on a recorder from YouTube. Fixing showers and Britney Spears can't be that far off, can they?

The ended call disappears and James pulls up his YouTube app—where all of his most recently viewed videos happen to be six years worth of dance performance clips from the Shacklebolt Academy, but he bypasses those quickly for the search bar.

Considering it for second, he slowly types in **how to fix a leaking shower**.

He presses enter.

It takes moments. Literal _moments._ Pages and pages and _pages_ of videos pop up.

James grins.

Would you look at that! An instant plethora of knowledge right at his fingertips!

Good ol', YouTube.

For the first time all morning, James feels bolstered again. It's a treasure trove of plumbing tips and tricks. Finding an applicable video takes a bit of effort—James immediately regrets whatever whim of haughter had inspired Leonard to install such posh showers, because the simplistic hardware most of these YouTube fixers are working with look utterly foreign to the one James is facing now, with its luxe rain shower head and its ornate piping. He's learned enough from Myrtle and from the first few videos he watches snippets of to know that he has to take off the shower head and decorative back piece anchoring the arm to the wall first, and that seems easy enough. Even _he_ knows how to use a screwdriver. He locates one in the tool box, and pliers that he's told will help him remove the head from the arm.

So. The head first.

He can do this.

Verna, the former-accountant-turned-DIY-expert, just made it look easy as can be.

James is just as competent as Verna, surely?

He digs out a washcloth from beneath the sink and drapes it over the piece connecting the shower head to the arm. PlumbingHelp4U557 told him that the washcloth is an important barrier between the pliers and the bolt so that you don't scratch up your hardware, and James definitely doesn't want to do that. Thank you kindly, PlumbingHelp4U557.

He opens the pliers, catching the cloth-covered bolt in its clutches. Righty tighty, lefty loosey. He's got this. No problem.

James grunts, and give the pliers a yank.

In just under a minute, James has the shower head off.

Ha! Take _that_ , Myrtle! Look at him—Mr. Fix-It, indeed! _Sir_ Fix-It, even! Surely he deserves to be dubbed with a scepter of some sort after this?

Buzzing on his recent knighthood, James eyes the shower arm and back piece thoughtfully.

You know—Verna had mentioned that sometimes it was just a matter of tightening or loosening the right thing. And that other bloke—Home_Improvement_for_Dummies—he'd mentioned that, too. It was certainly a possibility. James experimentally puts the rag and pliers to the bolt connecting the shower arm to the wall piece. He gives a decisive twist.

...was that loose?

It had definitely _moved_. He knows that.

So it's tightened now? Was that all this was?

If the fix is honestly as simple as that, James will _cheer_. He will loudly and actively _celebrate._

Humming thoughtfully, James decides there's only one way to find out.

He steps a bit to the side and reaches out to turn on the water.

It takes a second—there's the faint, tinny sound of the pipes going, but no water leaks from the wall piece yet.

Slowly, a beginning bit of water slips out of the shower arm pipe, where the head would be.

Eureka!

James whips a victorious fist into the air. "Sir Fix-It does it ag— _gahhh_!"

Water.

Water _everywhere._

 _"Fuck!"_ he shouts, the exclamation quickly drowned out by the continued burst of frigid, sputtery water that explodes from the shower pipe, from the wall, from bloody _everywhere_ , and straight onto his person, drowning _him_. James stumbles back, hand flying up, a frenzied litany of "fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ," expelling as he frantically moves to yank the water off again. Almost as quickly as it had come, the water stops, leaving James floundering, gasping, and dripping.

Well. It wasn't the loose bolt.

He lets out a choked huff, plucking his specs off his drenched face and attempting to wipe their sodden lenses with the few stripes of fabric at the bottom of his t-shirt that seemed to have been spared from the water attack—if there _is_ any part of him that has been spared.

Unsurprisingly, it is tremendously unhelpful. The water spreads more than it absorbs, leaving swipes of dotted water and condensation across the glass lenses. James mutters under his breath, grasping the hem of his shirt entirely and lifting it up in a vague attempt to dry his face. He pats and curses. Curses YouTube. Curses himself. Curses showers and Myrtle and all knights of every kind.

A smattering of footsteps sounds from the hallway as James reseats his glasses, and then Lily appears in the bathroom door.

She's...back?

Fucking hell, how long had he been searching through bloody videos?

"Is everything okay? I just heard—" she begins, sounding concerned, then stops short, evidently able to assess the situation without need for explanations. He is _very_ wet, after all. "Oh."

She's freshly bathed, with soft waves forming in the folds of her damp, dark red hair, bringing with her the scent of coconut that he's come to associate with her presence, garbed in one of the many colourful, floaty summer dresses she owns that skim her thighs and oft induce...thoughts he shouldn't be having.

He's suddenly very grateful for his recent cold shower.

James considers pulling the shirt farther over his face, burrowing there for a few hours, or days, or years, but instead decides the only way out of this is blatant, false bravado.

"No worries," he tells her, patting some more. "Pesky pipe got a bit fresh. All handled."

"Oh," she repeats, her eyes on his stomach, sounding rather detached from the present. "Is it fixed now?"

"Not...quite yet," James answers, though the words come out slow as he squints through his water-splotched glasses, wondering if his vision is really that impaired, if he's imagining things, or if she's actually...

No.

She can't be.

She's not...

He shifts slightly, watching her eyes dart immediately up, then down again, then up once more. There's a telling pink colour pooling in her neck, then creeping upward.

Fucking hell.

She _is._

Lily Evans is standing mere steps from him, _ogling_ his person!

In that moment, James makes a very quick, very rash decision.

"Reckon this is officially useless now," he says, and yanks the wet shirt entirely over his head. The damp material weighs heavily in his hand, and he chucks it casually into the sink. "I'll toss it in the laundry later. You're not in a rush, are you?" He motions, with bare arm, to the shower pipe. "This may take a bit."

"No," she says immediately, looking at the sink now. "No work today. I was going to go for a walk and—actually, I can wash that for you because I was going to do _my_ laundry. And make breakfast. Would you like breakfast? I've put on some coffee for you, and I thought I'd use Mary's waffle iron while she's out." She gestures behind her back. "Did I mention she went to meet Eddie? It's just you and me here."

"You mentioned. Waffles sound brilliant," James says, but having made learning Lily Evans a focal point of his daily life for the past few weeks, he immediately notices how she's shifting in the doorway with each successive offer, eyes darting just about everywhere, and maybe most telling...the red continuing to pool up her neck and into her cheeks. "Long as you don't mind a bit of shirtlessness with your morning meal?"

She moves to the sink, picks up his sodden shirt, wrings it out with deft twists from her slender fingers.

"Yeah, I think I can handle that, actually," she says as she works. "I wouldn't exactly call it a trial."

"Just what a bloke likes to hear." He's physically unable to keep the small, pleased smile from spreading over his lips. He nods down to the tool box open on the floor. "Mind grabbing that smaller wrench for me?"

James does not need the smaller wrench. Or—well, maybe he does. He doesn't know. Verna and Home_Improvement_for_Dummies haven't quite helped him that much yet. But he _does_ know that he can do better than "not exactly a trial," and cultivating an excuse to have her come closer, generously offering a better gander is...the kind and neighbourly thing to do.

Look, James knows he's not horrible to gaze at. His mother spent far too much time throughout his childhood congratulating herself on creating such an attractive spawn, so she's obviously to blame for his blatant vanity. He has amazing hair. Very good angles to his body. His metabolism is a thing of wonders. As such, he has never had to grapple with those kinds of insecurities, just the ones in which he is occasionally a bumbling idiot.

So if he's reaching up right now for no logical reason whatsoever, feigning some kind of desperate need to inspect the shower pipe, causing his quaint but defined muscles to strain, and his stomach—honed from years of sport—to ripple as much as it _can_ ripple…

Well, he is only human.

And no one is _forcing_ her to look.

Out of the corner of his eye, James peeks to see if she's still looking.

She's still looking.

She's looking as if she's torn between exiting the room and picking up the smaller wrench and throwing it at his head.

James stifles a smile.

It takes her a moment of silence, but she drops the sodden shirt back into the sink, pushes her hair away from her face and steps into the centre of the room, circling the toolbox, needlessly, until her back is facing him, and he can't possibly see her expression, even reflected in the bathroom mirror.

"Which one?" she says, pointing to the floor. "The one with the red handle?"

"That's the one," James says, hoping she doesn't spot the retail stickers still tellingly attached to half the box's wares. "Can you pass it over?"

Lily makes a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat, and bends to pick up the wrench.

 _Bends._

She doesn't scoot down, or hunker to her knees, or elegantly curtsey herself closer to the ground—she _bends,_ as if she's trying to touch her toes, and her thigh-skimming dress becomes less thigh-skimming and more...bum-skimming. Tiny, silky, lacy pink knickers-skimming. She _does_ seem to love lacy underwear, and that's something a bloke shouldn't know about his neighbour. Or his mate. Or anywhere in between or surrounding there. He already knows, quite frankly, far more about Lily Evans's undergarments than is allowable by his tenuous sanity, and she and her _bending_ are cruel and unusual punishment.

He nearly gulps.

Just when he thinks he has the upperhand. Honestly.

She snaps back upright and twirls gracefully on one foot, flipping her long hair over her shoulder.

"Is this what you wanted?" she asks, handing the requested and entirely unnecessary tool out for him to take, with a smile that might be triumphant, or might be entirely innocent.

 _Touche,_ James thinks, as impressed as he is daunted. He musters out, "Yes, thanks," with something that he hopes she thinks is a cough, but which is actually more of a choke. He does not know why he is so surprised that he has somehow lost the control here, but he will not give up so easily. "Actually, would you mind lending a hand for a tic? I need to hold the water off here, but if you could twist off that bolt just under the pipe? Super helpful."

James never turned off the water. He has no idea how to, though he's pretty confident it has nothing to do with him holding anything "off here." He is also _almost_ certain that the bolt he's just told her to remove does nothing, but even if it explodes the entire building, it may be worth it just to force Lily Evans and her haughty bends closer to his "not quite a trial" body.

Her eyes flit to the bolt in question, then back to his face, with one suspicious eyebrow raised in question.

"Does this scenario end in me getting wet?"

James matches her eyebrow quirk. "Would I do that to you?"

A brilliant, rosy flush steals across her face, but she sighs as if deeply inconvenienced by all that has transpired, and steps into the shower, skirting not-so-carefully around him—more brushing of her against him—her hands raised as if in surrender.

"Fine, I'll take the risk," she says, with a dainty lift of her chin, "but if I go down, you're coming with me."

"That's generally the plan when I get women in the shower with me," James says, and even _she_ blinks, startled, at the flagrantly sexual quip, so he quickly follows it up with, "Just twist it off to the left."

She stares up at him for a moment, her eyes wide and her lips slightly parted in surprise, but it passes, and she turns around, brushes her perfect, pink lace-clad backside against the front of his jeans, and reaches for the bolt above her head.

"I know which way to unscrew a bolt, James," she says coolly, as if she hasn't just— "This one?"

Her dress really is very short. _Too_ short. So short, in fact, that lifting her arms into the air yields near enough the same result as bending over, only she's much closer to him now than she was then.

He shuffles back a step, then forward a step, wavering momentarily in this plan. But she's so close now and he can smell the coconut right beneath his nose and it acts like a tether, towing his body toward hers. The space between them lessens to nearly nothing, and her hair brushes faintly at his skin. He speaks quietly at her ear. "Yes. That's it. Good."

She makes a sound—a small, soft, delectable sound—in the back of her throat, and he can _feel_ her shiver, then she twists hard at the bolt and it comes away in one clean swipe.

"Got it."

James knows he should move away. She's done as he's asked, played along with his game, and he's already used up all his luck with the fact that nothing imploded as she deftly twisted off the bolt. The only thing left to implode is him—them—and he...he _can't._ He can't, but his feet won't move. They refuse. This— _this_ —is what he's been worried was here all along, been worried he'd get sucked into and give into too quickly, and now he's been proven correct. Too much heat. Too much draw. This is what comes of messing around with the fire. Now he's trapped in the flame. The warmth of her body surrounds him and it's a drug. It's like that time when they hugged, except now there's less space and more skin and he's determined— _determined_ —not to fuck it all up like he had that. He can't do that to her. To _him._ He doesn't know where this goes, but everything in him screams it's not away.

So he remains where he is, their bodies pressed together, reaching around her to slowly take the small, red wrench and place it onto the sink counter before saying, "See, I knew you wouldn't get wet."

"As far as you can tell," she says softly, and rotates back around to face him, her lips curved into a knowing smile. "Hey, you."

"Hi," he says, but it comes out on tight breath—on a tight _everything_. "I can't be blamed for that."

"I blame you completely," she retorts, as quietly as if to keep him close to her, lest he fail to hear. "I was just fine out there—" She nods to the bathroom floor. "—until you needed a hand."

"You have very good hands," he defends, matching her whispered tone with his. The space between them is so paltry, so utterly miniscule, that his own fingers faintly brush down the length of her as he reaches down to grasp one of the hands in question, lifting it up to present to her, like evidence. He plays idly with her fingers. "Blame back on you."

She doesn't pull her hand from his grasp. Rather, she drops the bolt she's holding in the other—it clatters noisily between their feet, but neither of them follow its progress—and trails the tips of her fingers along his exposed stomach, travelling up and up and up, stopping only when they reach the centre of his chest.

"No, you took your shirt off. You started it."

"You said it wasn't a trial."

"It wasn't." Her fingers trace a tingling path along his skin as they move higher, lightly grazing his bare shoulder, then toying lazily with the hairs at the nape of his neck. "It's not. You look really good, with no shirt on."

The words come out with breath feathering his heatened skin, which is when James realises that it is not just their bodies close, hands touching, but that his head has lowered too, that he's leaning toward her, that the hand at his nape is not so much toying any longer as it is _tugging_ —lightly, but decisively—and he can't conceive of a time when he would not follow where she leads, much less now, this, _here—_

"MARY!"

What the—

 _THUMP. THUMP. THUMP._

"MAAA-RRRRYYY!"

Lily jumps, flinching at the sudden bellows, the fingers on the back of James's neck clenching in surprise. James jolts too, but he's in this too deep now, his body bouncing forward rather than back. He can't get his hands to release her. Doesn't want to release her. No, no, _no._

Lily's breath catches. "What the—"

"Lily," James says, because he's not sure what else to say. What _can_ he say, to keep hold of this? He just wants to keep _hold_ on it. Her. Just for a little bit longer.

Her eyes find his again.

He loves her eyes. Anyone would. The spark of wit, of fire, always pooling in the green. Or darkening, like now, with heat and questions.

Everything in him burns. His fingers tighten on her, steady her. Something.

He leans closer again.

"MAAA-RRRRYYYYYYY! I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE! MAAAAAAAAA-RRRRY!"

Fucking Eddie.

Fucking, fucking, useless, worthless, dirty-panted, hairy-backed, woefully-wailing, _awfully-_ timed, _fucking Eddie._

It's gone. James knows it immediately, and he knows Lily does too. Whatever this was. Whatever...bloody fucking madness this just was. His fingers loosen their death grip on her skin. Hers fall down from his neck, fluttering to her sides in time with a breathy little sigh. They don't immediately step away from each other, but they may as well be on separate ice patches floating steadily apart in a frigid ocean. James swallows hard, listening to Eddie's continued door pounding and endless yelling in the background.

"Fucking Eddie," he says aloud, and hopes he sounds more aggravated than flagrantly bitter.

Lily makes a soft humming sound of agreement. She waves a hand toward the door—the same hand that had been cupping his nape and tugging him forward _seconds_ ago.

"I'd better—" she says, and motions again.

"Right." James's whole body is reeling and...hard. So fucking _hard_ , it's embarrassing. "Doesn't seem he's going to give up anytime soon."

"Yeah. I mean, no," she says, looking up at him curiously, "but—what exactly were we just—"

"Fucking hell, he's loud," James interrupts, because there is nothing good that can come from _what exactly were we just,_ because he doesn't _know_ what _they were just_ —or, he does, but it's all hot steam and bodies writhing against shower walls and guttural sounds, and he's _angry_ about that and his body is angry at _him_ for being angry, and stupid fucking _Eddie_ , and all of it.

With key timing, Eddie's shouts grow even more raucous. "MAAAA-RRRRRRYYYYYYY!"

Lily lets out a huff of frustration—likely at Eddie, but perhaps at James too. Her lips sink down, her head turns away, and she gingerly steps out of the shower.

Away from him.

James sucks in a short breath, trying to settle down his rioting body, his very frayed nerves. He gives himself a few bracing seconds before he forces himself out of the shower too. Lily is already halfway towards the flat door.

She flings it open without ceremony.

"Eddie," he hears her say. "What the _fuck_?"

"Where's Mary?" says Eddie, barrelling past her, a look of abject outrage stretched across his face. "I _know_ she came back here!"

"She's not here," Lily replies, looking completely nonplussed. "What are you doing?"

"We had a fight, and she stormed off, so I came back here to find her," says Eddie shortly, spinning on his toes, as if to see the hall from every conceivable angle, like Mary could be hiding behind the ficus plant in the corner near Lily's bedroom door. His eyes fall on James lingering in the open bathroom doorway. "What's _he_ doing here half-naked?

"Hullo, Ethan," James greets irritably. "Good to see you again."

Eddie blinks at him. "What?"

"Nothing," says Lily, her face practically crimson as she darts to the bathroom door to stand between them. "The shower broke. James was just fixing it. Saves us a call to the landlord. He got a bit wet and had to take his shirt off, is all. And Mary's not here, so you should probably leave."

"I'm staying _right_ here," Eddie hotly begins. "I'm not letting her get away with what she said over breakfast. You can't even _imagine_ —"

Eddie continues to rail, but James quits listening nearly before it begins, his entirely body going abruptly cold and rigid.

 _Saves us a call to the landlord._

Landlord.

Shit, fuck, _landlord._

Lily is trying to reason with Eddie, being far kinder about the situation than James had been prepared to be, but he can't even bring himself to back her up in trying to coddle the fuming Eddie back out the door because Lily and Mary were going to call the _landlord_ , and _James_ is the landlord, and somehow in the midst of all the heated madness of the past fifteen minutes, he'd utterly forgotten that giantly significant detail.

Slow.

He was meant to be going _slow._

Since when is waltzing three breaths away from shagging her in a shower going bloody _slow?_

James wants to wail louder than Eddie. Louder than Myrtle. Louder than both of them, put together, in miserable symphony.

He's a idiot. A complete and utter _idiot._ He _knew_ this was going to happen. From the second he'd met her, he'd known the sparks between them were dangerous. That's _why_ he'd resolved to go slow, why he'd held strong to his Dictates even in the face of the realisation that there were no two women more uniquely different than Sasha and Lily. That what was between them...hell, couldn't be _more_ different. Lasting a few useless weeks rather than a few useless hours did not make him any kind of saint or success. They still had infinite things to learn about each other. Had only barely scratched the surface.

She didn't even bloody know that calling the landlord meant calling _him,_ for fuck's sake.

James stifles a long groan.

He can't believe he did this. It's so completely unfair to both of them. But she…

She'd been there in the shower with him. She hadn't rebuffed his nonsense. Hadn't turned him away and told him to leave off her person. It had been her hands on him, same as his hands were on her. Her body shifting closer. Her breath fanning his skin. Her head tilting up as his had dropped down.

She would have... _they_ would have…

But what does that even _mean?_ That she'd merely be delighted to shag him? Or that she...would want something more?

She'd called him her mate, there in his bathroom, just this morning. It came from _her_ mouth, that.

James thinks he may actually wither in devastation if she's just in it for the sex. He'd honest to God rather be only her friend forever than reduce what's between them to just shagging. They're better than that. Their _click_ deserves better than that.

But he can't even _broach_ any of this with her until he figures out what it all means, until he can be completely clear and honest with her about everything, and he...he's just not sure if they're ready for that yet.

This is all still too new, too fresh and undefined. They've made quick progress, sure, but nothing—absolutely _nothing—_ about he and Lily Evans is casual or small or unimportant, and he's not going to make decisions about them without the sort of consideration that deserves. Look what happened when he _didn't_ stop to think.

Madness.

Regret.

Questionable decisions in showers.

He can fix this. He can roll it all back, regain his footing. Likely, it was just a heated laugh for her, anyway. James isn't ugly. They have clear chemistry. She hasn't seen anyone other than fucking useless Eddie naked in two years. James does not in any way mind being the body to break that sorry streak, but not if it's only a single-time viewing. Not if she won't be able to interact with him the same after. Not if it cost him their friendship.

Lily shoots James an apologetic look over her shoulder as she nudges Eddie into the kitchen, resignedly offering to brew the blighter a cup of tea as they wait for Mary to arrive.

James sighs, and retreats back into the bathroom.

Bloody Sir Fix-It has work to do yet.

* * *

"Was your breakfast okay?" Lily asks.

"Yeah," says James, dully. "Good. It's good."

His fork is playing absently in the leftover swirls of sticky syrup on his plate, as it has been since he took his last bite, and his gaze keeps shooting down to it, like it's some kind of burgeoning masterpiece. Or like he can't quite manage to meet her eyes now that they're alone.

Has he met her eyes _at all_ since Eddie turned up at the flat? Lily's sure she would have noticed if he'd bothered to look her way even once. There was a lull while he finished fixing the shower, sure, and Mary's return to the flat caused yet another dramatic scene in the hallway while she and Eddie hashed things out—from what Lily can glean, one was upset by the other's views on _Outlander_ , so words were exchanged, then Eddie took offence when Mary affectionately called him a turd—but the flat has been clear of such distractions for a good thirty minutes, and James has had ample opportunity to engage with her since then.

Eddie and Mary have set their differences aside and snogged it out on the balcony. All those hoping to bathe in Lily's newly-repaired shower will be safe from sudden shocks of spluttery cold water. James's shirt was run through the tumble-dryer and is now safely back on his person. Lily even had the time to make bacon, eggs, and waffles-from-scratch for the four of them, plus a cellophane-wrapped offering for Sirius.

All of this, they've managed to accomplish, but James Potter can't expel more than a single syllable from his determinedly downturned mouth at a time.

The worst part about it is how stupid it makes her feel.

Call her crazy, which Mary might, but Lily had been looking upon that moment in her shower as a positive change in the wind. Not that she hadn't been outraged by Eddie's interruption—especially since he called her Laurel _again—_ but more than that, she'd been happy, and incandescently so, because the object of her affections, a sweet, silly, achingly handsome man who slipped a straw-wrapper ring on her finger and seemed far too happy about it, had been close, _so_ close, to kissing her, and holding her, and _having_ her, finally.

And Lily must be a stupid, naive twit, must have missed something stark and glaring, because she'd made the mistake of believing that he'd be as happy as she was, that the pull she felt between them hadn't been the work of her imagination, that as soon as Eddie and Mary made themselves scarce, they'd be right back to it, and that the next time he took her to the restaurant of an overly-interested aunt, the woman would be right in assuming that Lily was his girlfriend.

What she's faced with, instead, is the stiff, sullen silence of a man who drowns in his own regret.

Flattering, that.

She couldn't care less if he enjoyed his breakfast. She's just angry enough that she'd hope he chokes on his food if she didn't care for him so bloody much. Casual queries as to how he liked his waffles don't belong with the line of questioning she truly wants to take. It's not the thing of the hour, not a cloak of invisibility for the huge, fluorescent pink elephant in the room. It's not a fix. It's not anything that matters.

But James won't look at her, and the atmosphere between them was _—is—_ thick enough to drive the rest of the household into a hurried retreat. Even now, a reconciled Eddie and Mary are probably eavesdropping on their non-conversation from her bedroom. They obviously know that something untoward is going on—James is as unsubtle in his silence as he is when he's at his most talkative.

"Well, you certainly ate a lot," she says, though she hardly knows why she's bothering.

He makes a vague, empty hum of agreement. "Hungry, I guess." Then—would you look at that—blesses her with an entire sentence. "Ought to barter with Mary for her waffle iron."

"She'd swap it for Algernon in the blink of an eye."

"Algernon's a poor choice for a hostage swap. He'd only scratch her to pieces and then flounce off into your room, and I'll be sued for breach of contract."

Scrape and slide, goes the fork, like nails on a chalkboard.

Lily drops her own fork onto her half-eaten meal.

"That's true, Algernon _does_ love me," she points out. "I'm glad you liked them, though. I'll have to remember to make them when you next bring Sirius over."

"Right." A tight, useless little word. "Next time."

"For Sirius," she says pointedly.

He coughs. "So."

"So," she echoes.

So.

What an aimless, insipid, infuriating talk they're having.

He's not going to bring up what he did.

Funny, that. Funny that he doesn't feel the need to mention that he'd been perfectly poised to slam her into a shower wall and shag her until neither of them could breathe, but he didn't, and now he looks as if he wishes he never tried.

Of course, there are other obstacles in the way, namely that he'd have to glance up from his plate to engage with her on any meaningful level, but he's so deeply fascinated by the syrupy remains of his breakfast that Lily thinks she could potentially be justified in flicking him with the wet end of a tea-towel and telling him to _look at her,_ for the love of Christ, she is a person who deserves his attention and respect, not Medusa in her lair.

Must be tough, being him.

Fuck it all, she's going to have to do it.

She _has_ to, or they'll spend the rest of their lives bumping into walls in the corridors because they're each so determined to avoid the other's eye.

"Not to bring this scintillating conversation down, or anything," she begins, and steels herself up, and takes a breath, and rips the bandage away from her wound with the force of a thunderclap, "but what the _fuck_ was happening in my shower before Eddie got here?"

His body freezes—a fraught-filled pause on the syrup Warhol-ing, a flinch of his face that seems to lock up immediately afterwards.

"Oh," he says. "That. Yeah."

After that, nothing.

From her best friend's bedroom, she hears a distant, throaty laugh. How bloody _typical_ that everything's rosy in Mary and Eddie's garden after they callously ruined Lily's morning with their pointless, childish arguments.

"You have a fully functional voice-box, as I recall," she reminds him.

He coughs again, waves the hand that's not preoccupied with silverware, but looks no less uncomfortable for the casual motion. "We don't have to—I mean, obviously it was just…"

Lily waits for the rest, but realises that he has trailed off, though his hazel eyes have flickered upward to look at her, properly, _finally,_ as if he expects her to fill in the missing words.

"Just what?" she says coldly, because he doesn't get to escape this. He doesn't get to worm his way out of an uncomfortable conversation with the barest, most insignificant response, not when she's the one who threw herself at the mercy of whatever humiliation lurks on the horizon. "You needed a place to park your boner and my arse was the best place for it?"

He flinches again, looking rightfully called out. That'll show him. She knows how a man's body functions. Did he think she couldn't _tell?_ She's had to force lids onto lunch boxes that were packing significantly less.

"Options for placement seemed very limited at the time," he eventually mutters.

Or jokes.

Is he joking?

If he's fucking _joking..._

"So, what, any woman would have done in a pinch, and I just happened to be there?"

"What? No! That's not—" He makes an offended noise of protest. "Look, I'm a stupid arse, slave to biology. We were...you're _you,_ and we were in a shower, and my body's not so good with finer details. Pretty girl in a tight space, and that's what happens. No need to make a thing of it."

The immediacy with which Lily finds herself acutely, stunningly hurt by this astounds her.

James is talking as if there's nothing for them to discuss besides the fundamentals of biology, because Lily is a woman and he is a man, and it was merely a primal, animalistic urge that pushed them to breaking point in her shower, as if that's all there is to it.

As if Lily hasn't spent the past several weeks feeling like her heart is going to burst when she passes his front door in the mornings.

As if she's nothing special at all, just a pretty girl in a tight space.

That's...not what she thought they were.

She feels as if she's been shoved unceremoniously overboard, cast out into murky seas and bewildered to find herself treading water without a direction. It seems that Mary was correct to advise caution, that Lily didn't know James as well as her starlit, sugarspun, candyfloss cloud of a crush led her to assume, and that all this time she's been travelling down the wrong path, hoping rather than knowing that they were set to arrive at the same destination.

She had thought—but she's an awfully foolish woman—that there was something in the way he looked at her, in the things he said that made her silly little heart flutter, and in any given snapshot of time they spent together when James was being himself, just himself, and she'd stupidly thought that _himself_ was exactly who she needed in her life, who she wanted and liked and trusted, who she could even see herself...

Loving. Maybe. Some day.

But if she's just a _pretty girl in a tight space_ that he'd briefly considered fucking...

"No need to make a thing of it?" she repeats. "Not make a—we were _seconds_ away from—make a _thing_ of it? Really? That's your position on this?"

"We flirt all the time," he says. "Harmless. This just...got carried away—"

"It's not—" she begins. Stops. _This isn't harmless, because I'm hurt, I'm really fucking hurt,_ she wants to retort, but she can't bring herself to say something like that, ten immensely simple, completely impossible words. Starts over. "I'd like an explanation." Better. "I'd like to know what exactly you thought you were doing in there, before Eddie turned up and put a stop to it."

"What _we_ were doing," he corrects pointedly. "We. There were two of us in there, as I recall."

"You stripped off your shirt and asked me to climb in there with you."

"Only _after_ you stood there in the doorway eyeing me up like I was a Sunday special!"

"So I can't enjoy looking at you without getting rubbed up against in my own shower?" she retorts. "You look at me like that _all_ the time, but I don't strip my clothes off and try to get you into bed every time you do."

She'd never _be_ clothed otherwise, she does not add.

"I wasn't trying—"

"Oh, excuse my semantics," Lily cuts in, anticipating the lie before it leaves his mouth, disdain dripping from her every word. "You were trying to get me up against the shower wall, not into bed, how could I have make such a mistake? That obviously changes everythi—"

"There is a tremendous amount of _me_ in these claims," he interrupts hotly, face flushing with more than just discomfort now—there's clear indignation brewing too. "Not as if you were shoving me and my erstwhile erections away, is it? What's _your_ excuse?"

"Don't turn this back on me. I'm not the one sitting here pretending nothing happened and acting like you're making a big deal for no reason. You know I'm attracted to you, you knew what would happen if you tried to initiate something, so you _did,_ and I went along with it—"

"'Went _along_ with it'?" He repeats the words on a disbelieving scoff. "Lovely. Flattering."

"Oh, right, because it would have been more flattering if I'd turned you down?"

"Better rejection than just _going along!"_ He's quite caught up with the phrase, deriding it again while a frustrated hand runs through his hair. The same hair she'd sifted through her fingers as his head lowered down to hers little more than an _hour_ ago. "What are we doing?" he asks, like he's only just realised this has gone off the rails somewhere. "I don't want to fight with you. We clearly have a dodgy track record with shirtlessness and bathrooms. Can't we just leave it at that?"

"I was drunk and not in my right mind when I met you. You were stone cold sober at ten in the morning, so don't even pretend that this is exactly the same."

"I'm only trying to defuse this! It doesn't mean...if you want me to apologise, I will. I've clearly been an idiot here. Is that what you want?"

"No, I don't want—" He's not getting it. Or he doesn't want to. "You nearly... _we_ nearly kissed, and I don't think it would have stopped there, and that seems...not like nothing, and I can't just _leave_ that like it's—I just want to know what's happening right now."

"I don't know!" he finally cries, huffing it out on a winded breath, then wincing at the confession. "I don't know what we were—look, what I _do_ know? Whatever happened in there, none of it was smart. Not a bit of it. We both ought to do better than to merely 'go along' with anything, and I think you can agree with that. So what are we fighting about?"

"We're not fighting," says Lily at once, reflexively, untruthfully.

He's not making any sense. None of this is making any sense.

"Aren't we?"

"No, we're not, I just—it's like you're so fucking ashamed of a normal human impulse all of a sudden, of what you did or—or of _me,_ which is bullshit because I wanted it, too, you didn't force me into anything, and obviously it wasn't supposed to happen but it did, and now you're acting like I've got the plague and that's not fair, that's not—"

"Ashamed of _me_ ," James puts in earnestly, leaning further over the table, closer to her. "Not _you_. Never you. You're right. I started it and I don't know...it isn't what I…" He trails off, losing the words yet again, though now he looks properly frustrated at himself rather than at her. He runs a tired hand down his face. "Look, I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable or confused. You're...you're not a plague. You're as far from a plague as possible. I didn't mean to fuck this up. I am trying _not_ to fuck this up by pushing all the erstwhile erections and shower walls aside, easy as it would be to hop in there and...but that's not the point. You're my friend, Lily. My _good_ friend. This? Us? It's...the best part of my day, usually. And I'd never want any stupid randy moment in a shower to ruin that. _That's_ what I was trying to say. That's what I meant."

Oh.

 _Oh._

She's his friend.

His _good_ friend.

The best part of his day.

He just doesn't want… or _does,_ maybe, but in a purely physical sense, not…

"So," she says, staring at her plate, feeling weirdly detached from what's happening in the kitchen because an invisible assailant has just appeared from nowhere and punched her hard in the chest, "what you're saying is that you find me attractive enough to occasionally want to...to fuck me in a shower—"

"Quit _saying_ it like that—"

"—but I'm too good a friend, so you'd ultimately rather not?"

"What I'm saying," James clarifies slowly, speaking the words gingerly, precariously, like he's navigating a minefield, "is that one not-even-existent kiss already has me fumbling this like an arse as we row over waffles, so fuck knows what the rest of—"

"You're deflecting," she says loudly, cutting him off, not caring if it's rude. "Just answer the question."

"I was getting there, if you'd only—"

"You tried to fuck me _in my shower."_ A second interruption rears its angry head. He should be able to tell by now that not here for evasive bullshit. He should know her well enough to know that it won't fly. "Don't pretend you didn't. Don't pretend it was some sort of mistake or that you didn't know what you were doing. It was very clear that you wanted sex, and if it wasn't because you wanted _me_ specifically, it was because you would have had whatever was on offer, and it—"

"Of _course_ it's about you specifically!" he yelps, redness pooling through his face. "Do you honestly think I'd have done that with anyone? You _know_ that I—" He stops. Huffs. Gives her a look, like _she's_ being difficult. "You know I'm attracted to you. We've _always_ been attracted, and that's just part of us, and I'm not going to be sorry about not wanting that to ruin everything else here—"

"So I was right, before? You're attracted to me, but you'd rather just be friends?"

"Yes," he says, a blunt, small, ugly word. "Or—I want to be your friend. I _always_ want to be your friend, before anything. And I think mixing in the other is just...poised for a mess. Clearly," he says, and waves a hand around them.

"And you're being honest about that?" she presses on. "Totally honest? Because I swear on my life, James, if you're lying to me now I will kick you out of my flat and never speak to you again."

He looks properly grim and solemn at the threat. It only takes a second for him to give the quick and firm nod.

"Yes," he says again. "I'm being honest."

"Then why didn't you just _say_ that in the beginning?" she sighs, and slides off her stool, feet hitting the floor with a dull thud _,_ her shoulders dropping. "Why couldn't you explain that instead of...whatever that shit was? It made me feel like I was meat or something."

"That's the _opposite_ of what I was trying to do. I thought brushing it aside would make it—I don't know. _Less_ like meat. Smaller, somehow. Clearly I made a right hash of that." He stands slowly, still eyeing her carefully. "You're important. _This_ is important to me. That's what I ought have said from the start."

Lily doesn't understand what's missing for him, what infinitesimal _something_ isn't there that means he cares about her, but not _for_ her. Why he'd shag her in a shower or talk with her on her couch until the wee hours of the morning, but has no desire to combine the two. She's not a stupid woman, ill-advised as some of her decisions have been today. She can step aside and look at what they have with a reasonable amount of objectivity, and conclude that even the most casual of observers wouldn't question their chemistry, their closeness, the fluidity with which they bounce off one another, so quickly, so soon, so _easy_.

She knows that she could make him so happy, if only he would let her.

Why won't he _let_ her?

And how _pathetic_ is she that's losing her mind over this?

"Yes, you should have, instead of making a pig's ear of things. You know you're better with words than that," she reminds him. "What do we do now?"

"Well, to start, quit giving Mary and Arsehole Eddie in there soap-worthy entertainment," James replies wryly.

"No, I mean, what do we do to make sure this never happens again?"

"Remain clothed at all times?" His lips quirk slightly, testing the joke. "Never let me speak again?"

Her eyebrows travel towards her hairline.

He gets it. Immediately. Tucks the corners of his mouth in and has the good sense to look ashamed.

"I'm serious about this," says Lily, and keeps her voice even—but there's a hard undertone to her words that she needs to drive into the forefront of his consciousness. "I'm at an incredibly tenuous point in my life—you _know_ I am—and I need things to be stable, which means I'm _not_ going to let myself get messed around. We need to be set on this."

"I never meant to mess with you," he insists. "But you're right. That's...fair. And it's not looking as if we can just ignore it, is it?"

"I don't _know,_ I've never been in a situation where I've wanted sex from someone who wanted the same from me, but we collectively decided to hold off. I'm pretty sure most people in that situation just wind up doing it—this is brand new territory for me."

At the word _sex_ , his eyes flicker clearly, quickly, down to rake over her body, then return to her eyes, then down again, as if he can't resist.

"Right," he says. "New territory for me too."

Lily almost laughs out loud.

The _audacity_ of him.

He would. _Still._

Of course he would.

He _absolutely_ would, because the truth is out in the open now—or a half-truth, on her part—and as long as it is, then fucking her in a shower is always going to be an option. They can return to this awkward, painful, regrettable moment a thousand more times.

That excites her as much as it concerns her, and it shouldn't.

She needs to recover some agency here, take charge of the situation, and draw a clear, unbroken line that neither of them can cross. She and James have been flitting through an acquaintance without a single rule or boundary to stay them, and their happy little bubble has imploded as a result.

If she had any sense at all, she'd put an end to this friendship—cut her losses, cut him out, cut the head off this monster before her feelings spiral further out of control—to protect her own interests, because in her heart she _knows_ that "just friends" isn't a feasible long-term plan. _Just_ isn't a word for them, for what they are and _how_ they are and what she feels when they're together. _Just_ implies uncertainty—almosts and maybes and not-quite-theres—and she and James are better than that. They're both full-blooded, passionate, no-holds-barred kind of people, everything or nothing and all that goes with it, and Lily doesn't know if she can apply that kind of ethos to "just friends" and come out the other end unscathed.

She can't sit through this another thousand times. She can't even do it _once._

Mary would say that she should end this, now, before it breaks her heart, but she can't.

She _can't._

So what that leaves her with is…

 _That._

And that...probably isn't a good idea, in the long term.

It's a plainly bad idea, actually. Terrible. Ill-judged. Bound to bite her soundly on the ass.

She's going to do it anyway.

"Right," she says smartly, and points to the stool behind James's back. "Sit down, please."

"Sit down?" he asks in confusion, but does so immediately, falling back onto the stool like a skittishly obedient pet.

She's not sure what, ultimately, is informing her decision here, if it's lust, or sheer practicality, or an ill-founded need for some kind of retribution, but James will let her do it either way.

He wants her to.

He wants _her._

Just...not in the way she wants him.

Lily drains the last of her water from the glass beside her untouched plate and sets it back down. Then, with a sigh of resignation, she circles the kitchen island, keeping one hand pressed flat against the cold, granite surface like she's playing a game of tag.

She's directly in front of him now, nudging his knee to one side with her own, moving closer, planting herself firmly between his legs, her hands moving to smooth down a crease in his shirt, still warm from its brief sojourn in her tumble-dryer. Now it's _him_ looking up at her, the usual glaring difference between their heights done neatly away with. Lily's not trapped between him and a shower wall, waiting for him take action. She's the one in control, like he obviously wants her to be—it saves him the trouble of making a hard, potentially friendship-ruining decision—and she doesn't know if she should appreciate or hate him for that.

"Buckle up, then," she softly instructs, and moves her hands to cup either side of his face.

His chin jerks in her grasp, surprised, but still somehow quickly softening into her touch. Behind his glasses, his eyes rove her face in question.

"What are you doing?" he asks, and his voice is low, almost reverential.

"Getting this out of the way," she says.

She kisses him.

It's not the kiss she thought she'd have this morning, the one that was cruelly snatched from her by angry fists pounding on a door, not a fast, feverish rush of blood to her head and heat through her veins while she's pressed up against a slick shower wall. It's soft—insistent and soft, if the two can ever coexist—a slow, lingering press of her mouth to his, a deceptively innocent thing, a pretty, rosy flower with a million hidden thorns, because she wants him to burn as much as she's just burned herself.

She had been right, so right, his lips _are_ perfect.

Soft and full and perfect, and made to be fused with hers, the idiot. Stupid, noble, beautiful _idiot,_ denying her this for the sake of friendship, letting nonsense words fly from a mouth that would be much better served in kissing her soundly, now, and tomorrow, and every bloody day thereafter.

He moans when she slides her tongue along his bottom lip, a low longing sound that rumbles in the base of his throat, and Lily knows exactly what it means—I like this, I like this, _I like this—_ and moves his mouth against hers, suddenly awake and returning the pressure, hungry for a taste of her now, and it's a small, sly triumph he affords her.

She's shown him, now, that this is what he could have had. This is what he's passed on.

 _Got you,_ she thinks, and pulls away fast.

"One," she says, and holds up a finger. "You get one." One kiss. A fleeting thing. Fairly chaste. Somehow the most erotic thing she's ever done in her life. She desperately wants to kiss him again, but she sounds as if she believes her own lie. "That was it."

"One," he repeats dumbly. "Helpful."

"Let's hope so."

He doesn't say a thing, but sways back slightly in the stool, looking like a faint puff of air might topple him to the floor.

"It seemed like the practical thing to do," Lily explains. Her heart is pounding, her head swimming like it was on the night they met, a heady intoxication flooding every winding spool of her brain. "We had an itch and now we've scratched it, and now it's done and that's that. Finished."

"Finished," he repeats again, a sudden parrot. His lips twitch, side to side, like she's left something lingering there. "I feel much better now."

He doesn't sound like he feels better.

Good. She's glad. Better to be in hell together than languishing there on her own.

"That's great," she tells him. "Good. We're on the same—tea. I really fancy some tea." She spins away from him, moving to the little corner cupboard that houses Mary's unnaturally large assortment of flavoured teas. "And look, I know I interrupted your morning and I'd hate to keep you from the rest of your day if you've got something planned, but thank you _so_ much for fixing the shower."

"Got something...wait," he says.

Lily glances over her shoulder just in time to see him totter rather inelegantly off the stool. "Wait?"

"That's—that's it?" he continues, looking slightly punch drunk. "All the 'what is this' and 'what do we do now' and you just...and now you're all sorted? And kicking me out?"

"Of course not, I just don't want to keep you from your day," she says reasonably, and selects a box of teabags at random from the cupboard before she turns around to face him properly. "Also, I mean, maybe it'd be good if we had a little distance from each other for a couple of days?"

"Right," he says tightly, a sudden tick in his jaw seeming to flutter to life at the suggestion. His expression shutters. "If that's what you want."

"No, it's not—it's not that I _want_ to not see you." He looks entirely lost, and Lily feels like the bad guy suddenly. "It's like, I think we're a bit combustible now because we were curious about… you know, and now I've kissed you and that was lovely, but it's like trying to limit yourself to one chocolate when you've got a whole box of them, yeah? So we should probably take a couple of days until we...don't want chocolate."

"So it's...strategic separation, not"—he shrugs, scratches at his neck—"not because you're still cross, or because something's gone all wrong here now?"

"Yes. Strategic. Exactly that. You always know what I mean."

What Lily means is that she's a hair's breadth and one poor decision away from throwing herself at him and letting him have her on her kitchen floor—and he _would_ have her, it's as plain as day, and she's certain he's relying on her to leave his self-control untested—but she doesn't want to do that if he's only looking for a friend, if he doesn't want exactly what she wants from him.

She just needs some time to catch her breath.

He can't begrudge her that. He shouldn't.

Knowing what she means or not, James still doesn't look like he wholly believes her, shoulders tensing at whatever seems to be left unsaid here—so much left unsaid, by both of them.

He exhales a weighted breath. "Will you be alright, getting to work? Chocolate is all well and good, but if the choice is between fraught discomfort and you being mowed down because of that stupid bike—well, that's no choice at all. For me," he says.

God, but it makes her melt that he cares about her.

"I'll be fine," she assures him lightly, "honestly, I'm talking about a couple of _days,_ not weeks, and I'm taking a train to Manchester tomorrow to film that Claire Foy thing so I won't be anywhere near my bike. You won't even notice I'm gone, I promise."

He chokes out a humourless snort. "Well, _that's_ simply not true, and you know it."

"I'll have Mary knock on my wall at night to remind you that I exist while I'm off being murdered. Again," she adds, with a wan laugh. "So, y'know, don't worry about anything—I'd just appreciate the space for a few days. Get my head screwed back on properly."

"As if you could just sub in Mary to understand all our knock nuances," he mutters. "Better off sending smoke signals from Manchester. They'd have about the same effect." His head tilts slightly. "Though I suppose smoke signals still count as contact. Best not, then."

He's being so dramatic and pessimistic and _sad_ about all of this, assuming that 'space' is equivalent to an insurmountable, deathly silent void, and she's half-expecting an over-the-top gesture later, an "I'm sorry for seducing you in your bathroom, the most sacred of all private spaces," tapped out in morse code on his bedroom wall, because pushing the boat out is kind of his thing.

She lifts her favourite mug—the one with cat ears that she normally lets him use—from the mug tree and pops an apple-scented tea bag inside.

"Whatever you think I'm asking for now, take it down about five notches, and that's actually what I want," she says as she flicks on the kettle. "I'll text you."

"Or you can knock," he suggests, still watching her with a languishing sort of worry that proves he's likely only kicked his imagination down a paltry half notch—if even that—despite her advice. He takes one reluctant step toward the flat door, then another, feet dragging. "I'll be around."

"And I _won't,_ because I'll be away, so this'll feel totally normal, don't fret."

"This is not normal at all," he objects, with more reluctant steps. "I meant when you return. You know, knock hullo, a little 'I reckon I can tolerate seeing your face again' rap."

"James," she says, a sigh with some weight to it, some resignation, the barest hint of _not now, please._ She knows what reassurance he needs, but she doesn't have the energy to give it, nor should she need to. Once he extracts himself from the immediacy of his own feelings, he'll see that she's the truly injured party, and he'll understand why she needs this. "It's fine, okay? Cross my heart. Go home and relax and I'll talk to you soon."

It's too direct a request for him to continue lingering without merging into outright defiance, though it's not without several moments of lips opening and closing on unspoken comments and even a vague lift of his hand in entreaty that he finally reaches the kitchen doorway. His trainers scuff at the wooden flooring. His fingers curl over the side of the doorframe, a deathgrip clutch. His handsome face still looks terribly bleak and forlorn.

"I'm sorry," is what he finally settles on, though he's likely not apologising for any of the things Lily would prefer. "Give Claire a run for her money, yeah?"

"I'll die like a pro," she promises, and waves him gently out the door. "See you."

The deathgrip on the doorframe loosens. One hand lifts in a weak little wave. His eyes remain pinned on her face as if he's trying to download it into his memory, as if he'll never see it again.

"See you," he echoes, and is now officially in the hallway. "Travel safe."

When Lily hears the telltale click of her front door, signalling his exit from her home, and her life, if only for a couple of days, she drops into the stool he vacated and props her elbows up on the table—violating every rule of etiquette her parents ever taught her—to cup her face in her hands and sleep, probably, upright and all, because she's all of a sudden exhausted, thinking it over seems like the enemy, and moving from this spot is too great an effort to attempt.

She stays like that for a few minutes, she thinks—not upset or angry or anything, really, just very, very tired, ruminating on nothing but how much she likes the quiet—until a gentle rapping on the frame of the kitchen door sends her spine snapping straight, assuming he's come back, or that he didn't leave at all.

It's only Mary, though, clearly fresh from eavesdropping. She's got that look on her face, a pretty, blue-eyed marriage of genuine sympathy and smug vindication. Another day, another hunch, another bloody victory. Someone ought to gift her with a medal.

Mostly, though, there's sympathy.

Mary is very nice, and loves Lily very much, and deserves better than Eddie, that living tragedy.

"Has he left yet?" she says gently, and tiptoes across the kitchen floor as if Lily is keeping a sleeping baby in the dishwasher and she doesn't want to wake it up.

Lily shrugs, reaches for the freshly-boiled kettle, and hesitates. She doesn't even want tea. Why did she decide to make a cup? "Is not-quite-noon too early to open a bottle of wine?"

"I knew it. That wanker," Mary intones, her voice low and rough like an east London gangster. She comes to a stop behind Lily and rubs a soothing circle into her back. "I _knew_ he'd go and pull some stunt like this—"

"Mary, please don't—"

"I said it, didn't I? Said it _weeks_ ago. If they seem too good to be true, they probably are—"

"I _really_ don't want to talk about this—"

"No, look, darling, I _know_ you think I'm going to say that I told you so, and I'm not saying that—definitely _not_ saying that, but all I want is what's best for you, yeah? There's a reason why I wanted you to be careful with that guy, and I think that now—"

Lily lets her head drop to the table.


	5. Do It For Pluto

**Do It For Pluto**

James quickly discovers that there is no YouTube video to assist in the fixing of idiocy.

It is a quite expected though no less reviled finding, an outcome whose inevitability still provides nothing but added fuel for the persistent sensation that picks at him for the several long, despairingly silent days that follow the incident with Lily in her flat: a heavily-weighted sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, a wrecking ball of roiling regret that threatens to fell him with each mighty swing, a perpetual dark cloud of prevailing misery that no amount of reason or reassurance seems fit to combat.

He is, simply put, not in his best state.

Or—as Sirius has termed it—"incessantly unbearable."

"Say her name one more time and I am heaving you over the balcony railing," is just one of the many unfeeling threats he levels James's way—this one delivered a mere twenty-four hours after Lily departs for Manchester. James has popped innocuously into his (former) best mate's bedroom, looking for only the _smallest_ slice of sympathy, as Myrtle has finally deigned to stop by the building to take a better look at Mary and Lily's shower, and James is naturally wallowing a bit.

"That's murder," James replies despondently, then wilts in a maudlin sigh against the bedroom door. "Lily is probably being murdered right now. Fictionally. By Claire Foy."

In response, Sirius throws three shoes at him and threatens to call Euphemia, so James departs.

Myrtle eventually grudgingly admits that James did a semi-decent job in the fix, but even that is no balm to a festering wound. It merely reminds him of how long he'd spent standing in that shower after Eddie had stormed in, diligently piecing together the strands of a game plan as he'd battled with a broken pipe, and how thoroughly he'd somehow mucked it up anyway. When Myrtle leaves with an insulted sniff and a bill charging him double for "emotional cruelty," James just pays it, struggling to resist the urge to ask if the bathroom still smells like coconut, even with Lily not there.

On the third day, the lads sack him from the Fortnite team.

"Coach!" Curtis shouts in a strangled cry, which is quickly joined by a cacophonous chorus of swears and groans over the PS4 headset. "What are you doing? You ran straight into the storm!"

"What?" James's head snaps around from where he'd had it pressed against his bedroom wall, spotting the ominous purple and the "you've been killed" alert flashing on the television screen.

Shit. He prods uselessly at the joystick. No good. They'd been down to the final six this round, and James had been the last man standing for their side. Being admitted onto this coveted Fortnite squad had been a very significant step in James gaining his ragtag team of hooligans' approval, and there is nothing more sacred to any of them.

A death by _storm?_ Pathetic. Practically blasphemous.

He'd only glanced away for a _minute_ , though. Just a quick press of his ear to the wall. He'd _sworn_ he'd heard rustling in there.

"Er—controller went weird," he lies. "Sorry, mates."

"A pride is only as strong as its weakest lion," Marcus preaches through the headset, a disapproving _tsk_ in the teen's scold. "That was a Scar-level performance, Mufasa."

"A _what?"_

"Ooh, can you feel the _burn_ tonight!" Isaiah cackles.

"Hakuna matata, Coach," Dev pipes in. "Eat or be eaten."

"Those are literally opposite sentiments," James retorts darkly, as the rest of the boys hoot and holler appreciatively. How _dare_ they use his favourite movie against him like this? "You hyenas need to be back in school."

There is more ribbing and debating, and James regrets ever giving them long speeches about freedom and democracy and pride _in_ the pride because he is very quickly voted out of his first-string spot, replaced by an only mildly sorry-sounding Jose.

Things really only deteriorate further from there.

"James," is Remus's tired input, on Day Four. "You need to stop calling me."

"You don't want to talk to me either?" James very nearly whinges, lying cocooned in his dark blue coverlet, blasting "The Christmas Shoes" on repeat. It is July, and the lyrics are far more religious than his generally agnostic sentiments prefer, but it is quite simply the saddest song James can think of, and thus highly mood appropriate. "She posted a picture of a baguette on Instagram this morning. A _baguette_ , Remus _._ Do you know how many bread puns I know? And I can't comment with _any_ of them. I _always_ comment."

"Just text her," Remus suggests, though it's rote advice at this point. Remus is at some swotty summer teachers' conference, and this is all James has been hearing whenever he manages to catch him between lectures. "Tell her you're an idiot who's half in love with her, even as you're a stubborn arse who is clinging desperately to his preconceived notions about how this relationship ought to be progressing, and thus fuck it up spectacularly at most given opportunities."

"Firstly," James returns indignantly, "I _can't_ text her. The one thing she asked for was space. No contact. I'm just supposed to ignore that too? Atop everything else? Secondly"—he huddles further in the blanket—"even if I _could_ speak to her, I can't tell her any of that. It would only implode things further. She didn't _once_ say throughout the entire ordeal that she fancied me as anything more than convenient sex parts on legs, Remus. Not _once._ "

"You didn't tell her _you_ fancied her as more than convenient sex parts on legs, either. And tried to downplay the whole thing like it hardly happened besides. What was she supposed to do? Declare her love as you were scratching your head like a befuddled geriatric?"

"I thought I was righting the keeling ship!"

"By steering straight into the squall, whistling like it was a sunny day?"

"I wasn't _whistling."_

"Right. You were brooding. Much better."

James moodily prods the music louder. "She doesn't care about me that way. She's only attracted to me."

"I have never even met the woman, and I _know_ that's not true." There's paper shuffling on the other end of the line, and James sighs. Remus is probably transcribing this conversation to use in a new course he's developing. Something like 'The Mathematics of Mates and Misery'. "You're not a very good liar, James. She likely already knows something is supremely off, which is why she's so thrown. You need to let go of this Dictate nonsense and talk to her. Or I'm resigning as mate."

"You can't resign as mate," James argues. "It's a lifetime commitment. Once you're in, you're in. Like the mafia. Or herpes."

Remus hangs up on him after that, which is likely the only appropriate response when one compares one's friendship to a sexually transmitted disease.

But while most of Remus's claims may be unsupportive rubbish—and James may very well have been better off just ringing Peter again, even though Peter's only input on the situation seemed to be invitations for James to join him at a pub to get sloppily sloshed at noon on a Tuesday—there is at least one bit of irrefutable truth in Remus's overall argument.

James had fucked up.

He had really, _really_ fucked up.

And worst of all? He's no longer even certain exactly where his true misstep lies.

The answer initially seems terribly obvious. Who can doubt that the rampant attraction and rash impulses that had lured him into coaxing Lily Evans into close shower quarters would deserve anything less than complete censure? It's the antithesis of his near-militant plans, his best-laid intentions exploding asunder within the meagre seconds it took to whip off a sopping shirt. Slow? Neighbourly? What's that? If a wrong turn is meant to be marked, clearly it must be there, in that bathroom, where the scent of coconut and the pull of pheromones—not to mention a softer, more yearning sentiment, one that Remus may be ready to call half in love, but James is too depressed to even contemplate—had sparked a perilous detonation.

Except…

Except.

Then he'd...and then _she'd…_

Kissed him.

She'd _kissed_ him.

Even now, days later, the thought of it still leaves James grappling. He'd done quite a bit of grappling, there in that ill-conceived mess of a conversation he'd foolishly attempted at the breakfast bar. It seems so obvious now that his clumsy ploy to shrug off the shower incident would erupt in his face with a force even greater than that of the dastardly broken pipe. As if Lily would ever let something like that just stand. As if she wouldn't immediately scoff her way through his dithering and dissembling. He'd made it barely a minute before she was already calling him out—bumbling bullshit and betraying boners, alike.

Her honest, straightforward questions had deserved honest, straightforward answers, but giving her any of those seemed too momentous a risk. Maybe he _is_ fixated on preconceived timelines, but for bloody good reason. Lily is too important to gamble on letting an overstimulated attraction take the lead. What if it never amounted to anything more? What if they lost everything underlying in the process? James can't take those odds. Not yet. Which he'd told her. Sort of. Badly. Really, clearly, badly.

Which is why he had certainly never imagined the rubbish-heap answers he _had_ mustered would result in her _kissing_ him.

But she had done.

Lily Evans had _kissed_ him, there in her kitchen.

A quick kiss. A soft kiss. Barely a taste, really.

And yet, it was a kiss that couldn't be measured in length or strength to determine its cosmic significance. He could still feel her fingers cupping his face, the chapped pressure of her mouth on his, the toying little touch of her tongue on his bottom lip. It was everything he'd worried— _hoped—_ it would be. More. So much more. And yet, less too. Less because he didn't know what it meant to her. Less, because while he'd been mourning the loss of her the second she was gone, grasping for ways to draw her back in, to curl her in his arms again and let her burrow there for a day, or a week, or possibly forever, questioning if any of his plans or Dictates held any water in the face of something like _this_ — _feelings_ like this—suddenly paralyzingly uncertain if he'd made the worst kind of mistake with his clumsy sidestepping and insistence on staying friends... _.she'd_ simply been crossing that particular task off her to-do list, "scratching an itch," like his lips were a particularly bothersome mosquito bite that required a brisk rub to alleviate.

Lily is an honest person. A blunt, open, wonderfully honest person. She had quite willingly and to her own obvious consternation admitted to being attracted to him, to being an eager participant in whatever may have transpired in that shower if they hadn't been interrupted. And while part of James _revels_ in that— _she's attracted to him! Wants him! Still, even now, wants him!—_ the other part of him had noticed every little thing she _hadn't_ said: that she wants something more than a heady shower shag; that their friendship is as important to her as it is to him; that their physical attraction is something more than a bit of fun to "go along with."

And yet...Remus is right. James hadn't said anything, either.

He'd lied to her instead, saying he just wanted to be friends. He'd lied, and he feels like shit about it, not only because she'd subsequently snogged him and then shut him out, but because dishonesty isn't the foundation James is looking to build here. And as he _is_ still hoping to build something, maybe that, there, is the true mistake. The lie. Maybe he ought have just told her everything. The truth. How he feels. Forget the Dictates, forget his need for a solid grounding, for something stronger always lying beneath. Just said it: _I want you. To be_ with _you. I care for you. You're important to me._

He'd managed to get the last bit in there— _finally,_ after too much fumbling—but it was different when tied to the first few. He knew _she_ didn't know how he felt, what he truly wanted from her—from _them—_ and while he'd thought that right at the time, now he's not so sure.

If he'd told her the truth, where would they be now?

Together?

That seems like wishful thinking. He can't be certain. He's _never_ been certain with her.

But now she's asked for space. Didn't want to see him.

Or—thought it was best. Somehow, it was _best_ she not see him.

Just like he'd told her it was _best_ they just remain mates.

None of it is best. James may not know much, but he does know that. Doesn't know yet _what_ exactly is best—but this? This strange, bleak stall they're caught in? The one she'd asked for, that he'd led her to, that she's gone off on her trip stewing in? That is far, far from best.

Despite his steadfast attempts and mortifying apologies and his nearly uncontainable urge to make it so Lily Evans never had to worry or fret or frown about anything, ever, he'd still botched this. Thoroughly.

She'd said they were fine, that all was understood, but it's all paltry platitudes and little comfort.

It isn't enough. It isn't _nearly_ enough.

How is he meant to fix this?

* * *

Wednesday evening, Sirius's Grinch heart grows three sizes bigger. He steps into the living room, showing incredible restraint by snarling only minimally, and promptly throws twenty quid at James's vegetating form—the same vegetating form that has spent most of its day painstakingly perfecting its shabbily unshaven depressed aesthetic upon the plush sofa cushions, indulging in more unanswered calls to Remus, and digesting a seemingly endless stream of stale crackers and _Love Island_ episodes.

The pound note lands on his chest, and James glances away from the bikini-clad Welsh woman on the screen—who is apparently _furious_ with a bint called Bitsy for chatting up her lad. Bad form, Bitsy—to stare down at it despondently.

"I generally charge more than this for sexual favours," he intones. "No exceptions."

"Please. You'd be paying _me._ " Sirius kicks aside the pile of building paperwork James had long since abandoned on the floor, then jabs a pointed finger out of the room. "Off the bloody couch. Now. This is getting nauseating, even for you. Pizza. Go."

"You're paying for pizza?"

"Desperate times."

James eyes the crumpled pound note dispassionately again, nudging it sulkily with one finger.

"If Lily were here," he mopes, "I wouldn't need to get off the couch. Sam would deliver to us."

It is, unsurprisingly, the wrong thing to say.

Sirius nods curtly. "Right."

Then he lunges.

" _Oi_ —!"

James is not quite sure how it happens—there is growling, and a surprisingly scrappy scuffle, and some _dreadfully_ unkind things that one's nearly-brother really ought not to be saying to the other, and then Sirius has him by the ear, tugging him towards the bathroom like an old-time schoolmarm leading the troublemaking lad to the punishment corner, railing about _audacity,_ and _intervention,_ and _stench of the living dead,_ and _indignity_ —twenty _pounds_ worth of _indignity!—_ but thirty minutes later, James still somehow finds himself shoved outside the flat door, suitably bathed and dressed, with twenty quid, no keys, and strict orders not to return until he's secured a piping hot pizza and a better attitude.

The flat deadbolt locks audibly behind him.

Amendment: two sizes bigger. One and a half, perhaps.

But James supposes getting himself clean and out into the fresh air isn't a _horrible_ suggestion. If nothing else, it will clear the clinging aroma of failure and blanket lint, and also give his stomach something to process that isn't dry, expired cracker. He opts for walking to Sam's rather than driving, takes his time getting there, and then makes idle chat with the proprietor as the large pizza cooks. It's familiar rubbish, and somehow comforting in that. He's been a body bleeding raw, messy emotion for days, and it's nice to stanch the flow, even if only temporarily.

 _Temporary_. James focuses on that as the pizza shop fills with evening diners. This is all only temporary. Soon, Lily will be back from Manchester—tomorrow or Friday, likely. She'll return, they'll have their chance to talk, and James can quit feeling like he's got a staticy shirt on that won't quit zapping him.

He's still not entirely certain what he ought to say to her. _Love Island_ has taught him what _not_ to do, but in terms of practical solutions, he's still a bit drowned. He's been through dozens and dozens of potential iterations in his head, but it's so hard to predict how she'll react that he's never gotten farther than some kind of stuttering apology opening. Honestly, he just wants to see her. Just... _look_ at her. In person. In front of him. Even if she's set on telling him off, he's fine with that. Deserves it, really. He's got a vision of her already, straight arrived from her train, looking travel-raggled and indignant, still carrying her luggage, ramming on his door to give him a good, thorough what-for. And he will just nod along to whatever she says, so grateful to hear her voice that he won't even care that it's calling him a fickle, frustrating prat.

Then maybe he'll kiss her.

No—god, no, he can't do that.

Or—well, _maybe—_

James gives his head a shake. He'll figure it out later. All of that, _later._ For now, he'll go home and perhaps start looking at train timetables. Again. Just to gather some ideas on potential arrival schedules.

With convenient timing, Sam announces the pizza is ready.

James grabs it and exits the shop.

He makes it to just up the road before the desire to prowl through the Euston schedules becomes too strong. En route is practically the same as "home," anyway. And he's likely better doing this now than back in the flat, where Sirius looms with a quick trigger to pummel.

Of course, James doesn't know for a fact that she'll be coming from Euston. Maybe she's out of Paddington. Or caught a bus. Or maybe she's met a friendly crew member, one who drove himself up to the set and who even now has Lily tucked neatly into his passenger seat, speeding back towards London, the pair of them chatting happily and the damn blighter getting to listen to her fervent rendition of "I Will Always Love You" (Dolly's, not Whitney's. Dolly, Lily vehemently insists, is not to be overlooked), or her melodious laugh as she puts on a funny podcast, or chucks french fries in the air and attempts to catch them with her mouth, missing a solid half the time.

Fucking hell, _maybe_ —

No.

No, it's Euston. Or maybe Waterloo. He'll check there too.

James makes it to the building in record time, his distracted steps quick in their researching gusto. He pushes through the revolving door with an expert tip of the pizza box, clicking through a few more of the arrival times for tomorrow, trying to memorize them before he makes it to the elevator. He'll need his mobile tucked away before he's back in the flat.

His steps slow as he reaches the lifts. He leans to jab the UP button with the side of pizza box, and is still haphazardly juggling the square in one hand and speedily scrolling through the schedules with the other when the lift doors open with a friendly _ding_. He steps forwards, eyes still on the phone—

—and just barely misses maiming Lily in the head with the sharp corner of the pizza box.

Lily.

James's stomach drops to his toes.

 _Lily._

"Shit— _shit._ Sorry!" He whips the box around, fumbling it in his grasp, but somehow manages to keep hold of the heated cardboard without further damage. His heart is pounding, blood rushing through his veins, adrenaline suddenly going like she's just jumped out from behind a hedge and yelled _boo!_ in his face. She may be better off having done. He swallows. Hard. Forces out words. "You—you're back."

Back from Manchester.

Back, here in London.

Here, in the building.

Though she hadn't texted, or knocked, or even bloody smoke-signaled to tell him so.

While he'd been checking timetables.

 _What?_

"I am," she agrees, after a beat of silence, and slants a small, sympathetic smile at him, slipping through the elevator doors before they can clang shut between them. "Hey."

 _Hey._ He backpedals, eyes unsure of where to go, because she's looking fresh and pretty in the rose-splattered dress he recalls from the first time he and Sirius came to her flat, as well as her favourite earrings. He shifts his weight and fervently wishes he wasn't stumbling around with an armload of props for this, that he'd gotten through more than just the initial apologetic intros of hypothetical conversations, that he looked cooler or calmer or at least didn't feel like he'd been punched in the gut simply at the unexpected sight of her.

Unexpected, because he hadn't known she was back.

Because she hadn't told him.

Not that he's fixating on that or anything.

 _How long has she been back?_

"How was Claire?" he asks, feeling hollow.

"Oh, she was lovely. Bought me a sandwich in Pret. I was honoured to have her investigate my murder," she babbles, nodding away like an exceptionally beautiful bobble-head figurine. Her face and neck have turned properly pink. "How have you been?"

 _Miserable_ , he thinks, but swallows that. Bypasses _lonely_ and _sad_ and _angry at myself and now a bit with you too_ , as well.

"Fine," is what he settles on, the inanest of responses. He shakes the pizza box. "Forced to fetch my own take away because no one was here to smooth-talk Sam into coming near the building, but we all have our crosses to bear."

"Well, now I'm home, so…" She lifts both hands in an adorably flimsy little wave. "Ta dah? Magical pizza procurer at your service? I mean, I'm heading out right now and you obviously...already have pizza _,_ but you know what I mean."

 _What does any of this mean?_ James thinks.

"Are you off to get dinner, too?" He allows himself only the briefest of glances up and down her again, though it doesn't require any time at all to see she's not in the sweats and t-shirt she would normally throw on to make a quick jaunt to the pharmacy, or to grab some emergency Pringles from the corner shop, or some other hasty outing like that.

The dusky pink flush in her cheeks deepens to a rosier hue.

"I...well, yes, actually. I'm meeting someone in the city," she admits, though her eyes and the tone of her voice suggest a caught criminal confessing to a grievous crime. "It's all a bit manic, to be honest. I was meant to get back yesterday but filming ran on another day and they needed me to stay because, you know, the person lying on the coroner's table is kind of a focal point, so I've been home for all of three hours and Mary just sprang this—this date she's arranged for me with some mate of Eddie's and, well, suffice to say I didn't have much notice. Which is why I haven't—I was going to text you," she adds, and her beautiful face is practically flaming. "I've just been swamped."

There is a loud, insistent ringing in James's ears.

 _Date_ , it says.

 _Date, date, date, date._

She's going on a date.

She's back from Manchester. Back in London. Back in the building. Was _going_ to text him. But she's going on a date right now.

A date, in the dress she'd worn on the first night they'd hung out together. A date, four long days after she'd gone. Four long days which had felt like four hundred.

For him, anyway.

A _date_.

"A date with a mate of Eddie's?" Even to his own ears, his voice sounds tight, like a python has curled its way around his abdomen and is now squeezing his diaphragm for all its worth. _Hiss, clench, hiss._ "Didn't know Eddie had mates."

"I think he's a colleague from the hospital, rather than a friend. Some surgeon or other. I'm not sure. Eddie and Mary are like, a real couple now, and Mary insisted that I'd love this guy, but she and I don't exactly have the same taste, so…" Lily shrugs. "I don't really—I mean, I'm sure it'll come to nothing, but if I put in my time now it gets her off my back."

"Right. If it gets her off your back."

The comment comes off more curt than he means it to—though he's not quite sure how he _does_ mean it, except that everything in him seems to be prickling in protest and bubbling with resentment and he's been beating himself up over what he ought to have done that day in her flat for _four days,_ and clearly she wasn't fazed enough to even linger a few dozen hours over it before agreeing to appease Mary's matchmaking.

Something dark—realisation, or concern, or some acknowledgement that all is not well with James—flickers behind Lily's eyes as she hitches the strap of her purse higher up on her shoulder. It's a needless adjustment, as it was already perfectly placed, and in no danger of slipping.

"You're not mad at me, are you?" she asks him, very softly, a woman walking barefoot across a floor littered with jagged glass shards. "I really _was_ going to text you, honestly. First thing tomorrow."

"Why would I be mad?"

Answering a question with a question—and _that_ question—is such a cringe-worthy tactic.

Her head tilts. "That's usually what people say when they want someone to figure out what they've done to make the other person mad."

He doesn't have any real right to be angry with her. He reminds himself of this, even as he feels it anyway, feels his fingers curling around the pizza box in a steel grip, feels the heat sweep through his limbs and the combatting feelings of disapproval and disappointment spreading through him.

He'd told her, directly, he didn't want anything romantic with her.

Hadn't _meant_ it, but it's what he'd told her.

Said it didn't make sense now—which it _didn't_ , then maybe it did, and now seems like it doesn't again.

She has every right to make dates with whomever she pleases. Has every right to text him, or not text him, when and where she'd like.

James knows all this, but he can't not be angry anyway, because her insistence that she meant to text him feels like a paltry defence after she's been caught out, and because he'd felt _so terrible_ and _so wrong_ about everything that had happened that day in her flat for the entire time she's been gone, and now it somehow seems that maybe— _maybe_ —he was right. That if he _had_ gone and explained the truth, what he really felt, that it wouldn't have meant to her what it meant to him. That these clear and obvious feelings between them were more transient and easily pushed aside for her.

That she can't have much regard or feeling for him at _all_ —even their friendship—if a random mate of bloody _Eddie's_ takes precedence over taking a second—just a _second_ , one quick moment—to let him know she was even back.

And James wants to weep for it.

Wants to gasp and gargle and choke and _weep_.

But he can't do any of those things. It's too raw, too mortifying. His pride—and half his bloody _heart_ , thanks cruel and wily _Remus_ —is too pricked and bleeding to allow it.

So he gets furious instead.

Really, awfully, inappropriately, irrationally _livid._

"Well, I'm not mad," he says, with volcanic crispness. "Nothing to figure out."

"Are you sure? Because I really did mean to—honestly, today's just been so rushed, James, but while I was away I really—" She lets out an impatient sort of sigh. "I was going to text and ask if you wanted to hang out. Tomorrow. Or whenever suits you."

Lily is a tremendously honest person, James reminds himself. She's not the sort who would leave him to sit and stew for ages, play with anyone like that. If she was done with him, she'd just say so. But regardless, the series of insistences seem too neatly given at too pointed a time for him to consider them earnest, and maybe that's his temper speaking, or his jealousy, or his hurt, but he can't help it. He doesn't believe her.

Or perhaps he's merely past the rational point where that matters now.

"My team has a match tomorrow," he lies, pettily. "Then I have to head over to the programme offices. A ton of paperwork. Really busy day."

"Well, you'll be free by the evening, right?" she asks, a concerned little crease burrowing between her eyebrows. "Or the day after that, or—I mean, I took the whole week off work for filming, just in case, so I've not got much to do for the next three days."

 _Stop_ , his conscious says. _Don't._

 _No,_ his pride responds.

"Not sure yet. There's a board meeting coming up, and I've got to get all that squared away, as well." He shifts the pizza box, strives—and blatantly fails—not to look too pointed as he says, "I'll text you."

He can tell at once the significance of his choice in words is not lost upon Lily. James can never claim to have been blessed with the gift of subtlety, and she's far too clever to let something like that sail directly over her head. Her frown becomes more pronounced, and she takes a pointed step backwards, moving away from him, her elbow connecting gently with the elevator door.

"You'll text me," she flatly repeats, like she's tasted something foul. "You'll—really, James? You'll _text_ me? That's who we are now?"

"People who text?" _Stop. No._ "Yeah, some of us are."

"And some of us aren't liars," Lily retorts. "Thought you said you weren't mad?"

It's petulant to deny it any longer. He grits his teeth instead. "You really want to get into this? Here? Now?"

"When else are we going to get into it? You suddenly don't have time in your busy schedule to talk to me."

 _Schedules._ Like train arrival schedules.

"Well, not everything's got to revolve around _your_ preferred schedule, does it?" His voice is growing louder, sharper. "Today was not a convenient time for you to contact me. Tomorrow is not a convenient time for me to contact you. But I'm at fault?"

"Christ, James, I'm sorry for not texting you as soon as I stepped through my front door, okay?" Lily fires back _,_ because she knows, like always—of _course_ she knows—how to cut to the core of the matter, even if she's only uncovered a half-truth this time around. Her bright green eyes narrow in a disdainful glare. "I'm sorry that I thought I'd leave it 'til tomorrow because I've got to go to dinner and thought you deserved my full attention, not a fraction of it between courses. So _selfish_ of me. String me up by my bloody neck, why don't you?"

"No one was asking you to cut into your precious between-meal chit chat, all right? Maybe— _maybe_ —a different mate might have warranted a quick ten seconds _somewhere_ to get a mere 'Getting in tonight. Would really like to speak to you tomorrow sometime,' but that's apparently too much of a fucking _fraction_ here." He wishes he wasn't holding this bloody pizza box. He wants to cross his arms over his chest, or shove them in his pockets, where he can hide how much his hands are shaking. He wants to do something other than glare at her, because that's all he's capable of now. "Text or don't text. Fine. Priorities are all yours. But I don't understand why it's somehow fine when you say it, but an utter _insult_ when it's me."

"Because you're _trying_ to be insulting, and I wasn't."

"Funny thing about intentions. Sometimes they don't go exactly as you plan."

"Well, yours did. Congratulations," she haughtily replies, swaying a little on the spot like she's preparing to take off. "I don't understand you, James. You said you wanted to be friends. I'm _trying_ to be your friend, I don't—I don't know what else I'm supposed to do or what you want from me."

He wants her to have been thinking of him for every second she's been gone, like he's been thinking of her.

He wants to believe her when she says she's thought of him at all.

He wants to, at the very least, merit time before some arsehole mate of Eddie's.

But she's _right._ He'd said he wants to be friends. She can't be blamed for his jealousy.

But she can be blamed for his _friendship_ not being on the forefront of her mind, surely?

He doesn't know. In any case, it's not enough to pull the breaks on his runaway temper. It's officially taken over at the helm, blaring the horn in furious warning, perfectly willing to ram down any innocent track-crosser who may have had the misfortune of stepping in his path.

"This is what I was worried about," he says, feeling bitter and guilty all at the same time. "All this, after that day. I don't want you to have to _try_ to be my friend, Lily. And that's what this is feeling like now. As if it's all bothersome effort for you. And it's rather shitty. So, yeah, maybe I'm a bit mad about that. You don't have to do anything. I imagine that will only make it worse."

"What are you trying to say? That you—what, you don't even _want_ to be friends now? Because I needed some time and couldn't figure out how to make this work quickly enough, you're just done?"

"I'm saying that this feels shitty!" James snaps back, voice rising again in the—thankfully—otherwise empty lobby. "I'm saying that it feels like 'quickly' doesn't have anything to do with it. It feels like our friendship is number twelve on a to-do list that you'll eventually get to when you feel like it. And it didn't feel like that before."

At the words "to-do list," Lily recoils like she's been slapped across the face.

Then she closes her mouth. Opens it. A sharp gasp of a breath escapes her, but she catches it in her throat and swallows it back down, as if she never gave it permission to leave her chest.

Her gaze slips away from his face.

"I got you a present," she says, so quietly that he finds himself stooping to hear her. She's staring at the opposite wall as if her life depends upon it, a determination that looks as if it's physically taxing, her mouth forming a hard, stubborn line, lips pressed tightly together like she's fighting to hold back…

To hold back…

Oh, _fuck._

She's trying not to cry.

 _She's trying not to cry._

He stumbles forward. "You—what?"

"In Manchester," says Lily simply, but with a tell-tale quiver in her lower lip that fires off every instinct in every synapse in his body, screaming at him, chiding him— _hug her, comfort her, make this all go away_. "I was going for a walk in the city and there was this tiny party shop and I saw—it's so stupid, but you've been saying that the kids on your team have been on at you to sort them out a mascot non-stop, and I saw this—this stupid, cheap, _shitty_ lion costume and I know _The Lion King_ is your favourite movie so I bought it, but... but you think I don't care, or that—" She takes another deep breath and meets his eyes once more, but there are tears clinging to her lashes and she's shaking her head as if she can't continue and this is the worst thing that has _ever_ happened to him. "I have to go."

He takes another skittering step. "Lily, wait—"

He wishes he had use of his hands. Wishes his body could do more than just panic and move towards her and then freeze up, locked and useless. It's far too easy for her to get away, to brush impatiently at her wet eyes and clutch again at her purse strap, curling it to her like it's a safety blanket, very swiftly sidestepping him.

"Don't bother. I said I had to go," says Lily firmly, coldly, but the hard edge in her voice is undermined by the tear that slides down her cheek despite what are clearly her best efforts to contain it. She dodges out of his path and passes him by, realising his worst expectations, "and you don't need to text me, ever, I got the message. Have a nice night with your pizza."

 _Ever._

Fucking hell.

"Lily, don't. This is not—"

But if she hears him—cares to hear him—she doesn't let a soul know it. Her shoes clip across the floor with biting clacks, moving too fast to be termed anything less than a determined escape, and she's shoving against the revolving door in a matter of seconds, disappearing into the fast-approaching evening, like a fleeing wraith.

And then she's gone.

She doesn't look back once.

Doesn't pause.

Doesn't even flinch.

* * *

Her date's in love with a nurse named Kimmy.

She's a dark-haired Kimmy, brown-skinned and tiny, with kitten-like eyes and a sweet, round face. Lily knows her not but for one photo on her date's phone, but she's a fluttering of long, dark, curly lashes and a winsome, frozen smile that whispers comforting things like _bedside manner_ and _you're being really brave_ and _I'll fetch you an extra pillow, sweetheart._ Kimmy the Nurse is small and soft and capable—exactly the kind of nurse that any patient would want in a pinch, the very woman Lily would have wanted to prod her veins and draw her blood with a smile and a squeeze of her hand, should necessity and ill health ever call for it.

Sweet, sensible Kimmy, the true heroine of the hour, rushing to the aid of the sick and the helpless and elderly. Lily pictured someone tall and thin, with a high-pitched laugh and an Ellie Kemper twinkle, but Brian's nurse Kimmy is a teeny-tiny angel. She's a gooey, scrumptious dessert. A decadent caramel heart in a box of luscious chocolates.

It's fine, because Lily doesn't care at all.

She's in a delicate condition at this juncture in her night, so it might have bruised her ago, only Lily is the one who won this bout.

She got there first.

How simple honesty is— _I'm sorry, I can't, I'm desperately pining for someone else, though he might have broken my heart tonight, I'm not quite sure, it all went a little blurry when the train pulled out of Tufnell Park and I burst into tears—_ when she's got nothing else to lose but her pride.

It took a mere fifteen minutes of awkward small talk, napkin-fiddling and relieving interruptions from the waiter before Lily cracked and owned the truth. "Where did you grow up?" Brian had asked—or perhaps he'd asked her where she'd gone to school, or if she was enjoying her cocktail, the depths of which she had been staring resolutely into—and in a rush of exhilarating terror she'd discovered the key to her freedom, sitting squarely in a swirling collision of clinking ice cubes and diluted Coca Cola.

"I can't do this," she'd blurted out, and hated herself instantly.

How has she become such a dramatic, tearful mess? _I can't do this—_ such a bloody cliché. Is she a weakly defined character in a second rate rom-com? Is Brian the Surgeon not Brian the Surgeon at all, with his pale, clean-shaven face and Scandanavian good looks, but a chiselled Patrick Dempsey in a white button-down? Should she run from the restaurant in a fit of tears? Return to her movie-standard job in PR or advertising? Turn to Judy Greer for a slice of final act guidance?

Maybe she should take an Uber to the airport, intent upon beginning a new and glamourous life overseas. James will clearly chase the taxi down and stop her, so it's not like she'll need luggage.

"Pardon?" Brian had replied, frowning like he'd spotted a typo in a patient's medical record.

"I can't do this," she'd repeated. _Urgh. She's revolting._ "I can't do this date, I mean, and I'm sorry. Really, I'm _so_ sorry."

She was gesticulating with her hands the way her mother often did, a sure sign that she was losing the run of herself. As if her flailing fingers might distract her date from the rudeness that was spurting out of her stupid, inconsiderate mouth.

"Mary sprung this on me earlier," she continued to babble, "and I had no idea it was happening, and I didn't—if I'd had more notice or if I'd had your number, but Mary wouldn't tell me and I didn't want to stand you up, but I also don't want to lie because I'm not an arsehole, Brian. I must seem like one right now and you have every right to hate me but I'm just—I'm trying to get over someone. Badly. I'm _not_ getting over someone, really, and Mary's not happy with how I'm handling all of this so she and Eddie set this whole thing up. But I can't do it," she'd finished lamely. "And I'm sorry. I'm _so_ unbelievably sorry."

He'd taken it all in with admirable decorum, studying her face with an intellectual interest.

Then he'd let out a sigh of obvious relief, his broad shoulders slumping, and it all came tumbling out.

Two peas in a pod, her and Brian.

He is, admittedly, slightly less of a mess than Lily. Fraught? Yes? In pain? For sure. Burning with desire for a person with whom he spends most days in close quarters? Ditto. Tentatively suspicious that his feelings for said person are not entirely unrequited? Undoubtedly. But Brian the Surgeon is not a dramatic, tearful mess. Brian is a model of dignity and class. He didn't stumble into the restaurant and whistle out an excuse to run to the toilet first thing so he could wipe mascara tracks from his still-damp cheeks and trumpet into a tissue until he'd cleared his nose of liquified snot.

Lily did.

She's the mess.

She's losing her bloody mind.

Or… _is_ she losing it?

That's an interesting word, losing.

Interesting suggestion,the idea that her mind is not already lost, that Lily is not already hopeless, that she doesn't want to leap to her feet and send everything on the table crashing violently to the ground—one grand sweep of her arm to build a graveyard of shattered china plates upon floor beneath her feet, to see a dark red stain pool across the linen tablecloth like freshly spilled blood—simply because she _can,_ because this anger and resentment is white-hot and churning, with nowhere else to go but out.

They see the date through and form something like a friendship. It's so much easier to talk to one another, now that their respective expectations have been clearly defined, now that the James-and-Kimmy of it all has been set loose like a twittering bird, finally free from its cage.

His romantic quandary is less complicated than hers.

Kimmy clearly likes him back, for one thing. It's obvious from her texts and various social media comments.

Brian's whole problem is that he's running scared.

Much like Kimmy, his ex was a nurse who worked alongside him, and they were blissfully happy until they weren't, and their fairytale ended in a flurry of tears, betrayal and anger. Aimee promptly quit her job in shame, forced out of the hospital by her own pain and humiliation, and Brian feels terrible to have displaced her so severely. Unduly terrible.

He feels far more terrible than he _should,_ in fact, since Aimee cheated on him with a sleazy phlebotomist.

Brian's fear, such as it is, is that he'll subject Kimmy the Nurse—who, bless her, hasn't been made party to this torrid, daytime-drama backstory—to a repeat performance of a damaging disaster.

That's fair enough by anyone's standards, but as Lily points out over their starters, and again as they're tucking in to their main courses, Kimmy the Sweetheart Nurse is not Aimee the Lying Cheat. Kimmy deserves to have all of the information, so that she can make an informed decision and set Brian's worried mind at ease.

If Kimmy has secured Brian's love, she must also be entitled to his trust.

"Just tell her the truth," Lily advises him, scraping the last of her fish from the bowl and balancing it on her spoon, dashi broth dripping off the edge. "Do you have _any_ idea how many romantic complications can be completely done away with when you're honest?Radical idea, I know, but you might want to give it a try sometimes."

"The way you were honest with James?" Brian counters, lips quirking in amusement.

"Excuse me," she retorts. "James didn't give me a chance to be honest, yeah? I asked him, straight out, if he just wanted to be friends and he said yes. Y-E-S, yes. What was I supposed to do, say, 'no, sorry, that doesn't work for me so you're going to have to be my boyfriend?'"

Brian merely raises his eyebrows.

"Don't give _me_ that look, McDreamy," she scolds him. "When one party tells you that they just want to be friends, you can't argue with that just because you've caught feelings. That makes you an arsehole, and I'm _not_ an arsehole," Lily concludes, and shoves her spoon into her mouth. Her next words are thickly uttered as the fish falls apart on her tongue. "As we've already established."

She may be a little sloppy, and she might be a little drunk. She's on her fourth Long Island Iced Tea of the evening, and that's good for neither her liver nor her bank account, but desperate times call for desperately bad behaviour.

"You know," says Brian thoughtfully, "he probably said that because he thinks that _you_ just want to be friends."

Lily shakes her head immediately. Her spoon is dropped into her bowl with a clatter. "No."

"Ten quid says I'm right."

"No, you're definitely _not_ right, because I made my feelings very obvious."

"Unless you made a definitive statement, I highly doubt that you were obvious."

"Mary says I was."

"Mary is a woman," Brian counters, drumming his fingers on the pristine tablecloth. "And women tend to—sorry to play into a stereotype—but women are better at picking up on context. Men don't do well with subtle hints. We need directness. We're all a bunch of idiots."

"But you're a _surgeon,"_ Lily reminds him, aghast.

"I am," he agrees. "And a carotid endarterectomy is ten times easier than figuring out one of Kimmy's texts."

Lily scoffs derisively. "Has Kimmy ever kissed you?"

"No."

"Right, well I kissed him—"

"To get it out of the way!"

"Because that's what he _wanted!_ "

"You're assuming that's what he wanted." Brian's fork is pointed in her direction like a laser pointer. "Look, the guy's clearly a mess, and you're definitely owed an apology for how he behaved today, but also…"

"Also what?"

"I mean...you _told_ him that you were going on a date when you could have just lied," he reminds her, throwing in an apologetic wince, as if that'll soften the blow of being called out. "Don't you think you were trying to make him jealous?"

"I wasn't trying to make him jealous!" Lily yelps, heat billowing across her face. How dare Brian suggest such a thing? How dare he tell the truth? "I was just being _honest,_ and he—" She slaps both palms down on the table. "Which side are you even _on_ here?"

"Yours, of course," says Brian. "I'm just saying, try to look it from his perspective for a bit, yeah? This chap sees you in a play, forms a gigantic crush on you—"

"He didn't have a _crush—_ _"_

"He looked up everything you've ever done and saw the play a bunch more times," Brian flatly intones. "He had a crush, believe me. You were to him what Freida Pinto is to me, only Freida Pinto's never going to crash my bathroom with her clothes half-off. _Nobody's_ fantasy woman comes charging into their lap the way you did, and suddenly it's happening to him. The poor guy likely panicked. Then what happens next? You turn up at his door with apology banana bread. Now his dream girl is an angel and he's half in love already, but he also doesn't know her from Adam." He sits back in his chair and gestures across the table as if to say _and in conclusion, boom._ "Any bloke's brain would snap a bit in half at that point."

"That's not—that doesn't explain why he won't—" Lily's mind flounders, scrambling through the rubble for something she can use to counter all these arguments—these scary, confusing, _dizzying_ arguments that make her heart race and her palms grow clammy. "He said that he just wanted to be friends."

"Yeah, because maybe he thinks you're too good for him," Brian gently suggests. "Maybe he wanted to get to know you _outside_ of this actress fantasy he'd concocted before he made a move. Maybe there are other issues that you don't know about—like an ex who treated him badly, or something. The point is, you don't know for sure."

"No, I _don't_ know for sure," she sulkily agrees, "but as he doesn't seem to want to _tell me what it is,_ none of it means a thing."

"And that's a problem, yes—"

"One of many problems in my life," says Lily darkly, and chugs a mouthful of her drink. She sets it down on the table with a peculiarly satisfying _thud._ "Hurrah."

"Look, I need to pop to the toilet, but we'll keep this going when I get back," says Brian, and rises to his feet. He gives his mouth a demure tap with his napkin and points it at Lily before he drops it on his plate. "Stay strong."

Lily nods vigorously. "Staying strong."

"No texting him, alright? Not when you're upset."

"I wouldn't dream of it," she assures her date. "I don't even want to."

Brian gives her a thumbs up before he turns on his heel and strides away, moving briskly in the direction of the men's room. His pristine white shirt and tan chinos hold not a single wrinkle, Lily notes. Not the tiniest crease can her narrowed eyes discern.

Of course, he would have pressed his clothes meticulously for the occasion.

A man of Brian's profession ought to be as meticulous as he can, or lives are lost. He must be careful. Precise. Detail oriented. All are excellent, enviable qualities. Excellent _words—_ not like _losing,_ which Lily hates and wants to obliterate from the dictionary with a white-hot poker. Brian is an adult man with a university education and a shared-ownership mortgage and a grown-up job. He has grown-up ideas about dealing with her problems, even if he's blisteringly stupid about his own.

Brian does, in fact, give excellent, thoughtful advice…which Lily is absolutely going to ignore, but her reluctance to defer to his opinion does not negate the brilliance of said sage advice. She does not wish to take that away from Brian, so she will defy him very slyly. Swift and stealthy, like a ninja.

It's hardly Brian's fault that Lily doesn't hold with taking advice which does not specifically adhere to the decision she's already made.

It's not his fault that she's right about everything all the time. That's just the way she's wired.

The instant Brian disappears from her line of vision, Lily pulls her phone out of her purse with an unsteady haste that sends a tube of chapstick rolling quickly across the table, and opens WhatsApp. Her fingers fly across the screen as she composes her epistle of searing disapproval to James Potter, lest that careful, precise, sensibly grown-up surgeon emerge from the bathroom and catch her in the act.

If the world affords her any consideration, Brian will be taking a shit.

Men take forever to shit, disappearing into toilets with their phones in their hands, emerging after anything from five minutes to several months with expressions of pride on their slightly sweating faces, as if the expulsion of excrement is a monumental achievement mastered only by few. God knows what they're squeezing out of their rectums in there.

Still, Brian may be quick. He's been very polite all evening and may not wish to abandon her to the mysterious realm of male defecation. Speed is of the essence.

 _Tap tap tap tap tap,_ her fingers dance, then _whoosh,_ away it goes.

 **Look at me, I'm texting you between courses and ignorsing my date anf being really fcuking rude. HAPPY NOW?  
brian says I shouldnt text you and hes very smatr becuse hes a kid surgeon  
I mean a surgeon for kids not neil Patrick Howser**

Pretty damning, Lily thinks.

Only... _well._

She's made a couple of typos.

They're not...they're not _noticeable_ typos, surely?

Does it even matter if she made a few meaningless errors? James's use of capital letters are as rare as his abbreviations are frequent. He plays fast and loose with the English language like he's earned himself the right to do it, flat-out refusing to comply with those good and noble rules of spelling and grammar. Those rules that Lily so adores, except for when she's plastered, and _that's_ James Potter's fault, and all.

She takes another swig of her Long Island Iced Tea for good measure, and is pondering other disasters that she could potentially pin on James when the two grey ticks at the bottom of her screen turn blue, and an ominous _Typing..._ appears beneath his name.

No.

No no no no _no!_

James is supposed to read that message and feel utterly wretched and stew in his own desolation for the rest of the night, not reply!This is _not_ a conversation, this is his eternal damnation, and one does not just _respond_ when cursed to the smouldering depths of hell!

Who does this punk think he is?!

She hastily downs another mouthful of her drink—bless that liquid courage—and composes another text, because James Potter cannot be allowed a chance for rebuttal. He has no grounds for argument, no right to defend himself when he made her cry on the Overground, and she's a much faster texter than he is. She needs less time to think over her words.

Also, she completely abandoned her sense of shame in the sticky, saccharine bottom of her third cocktail glass more than fifteen minutes ago.

She's going to win this argument, damnit, and there's nothing he can do about it.

 **You shit YOU MADE ME CRY. I NEVER CRY and you MADE me do it and I was NOT wearing my waterproof mascara because I was not expesting to cry today. YOu know what's WORSE than crying with no waterfpoof mascara? Crying with no waterproof mascars ON THE TRAIN WHILE THE GUY NEXT YOU MASTUBATES INTO HIS RAINCOAT PROBABLY. I mean I don't have proof but he was fiddling around A LOT and I wished you were there becase I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS BUT I GUESS NOT. I GUESS NOT. I. GUESS NOT.**

It's sent before he can finish whatever it was he'd started.

Hah!

Winner winner chicken dinner, thy name is Lily Evans. Even though she'd had salmon for her main.

Except…

Except James doesn't stop typing.

The little shit is undeterred!

 **wait  
Lily  
Im so so so sorry**

"You great big flaming arsehole," she hisses at her phone, and sets her glass down on the table, denying herself the victory sip which just a moment ago seemed so stoutly earned. The absolute _audacity_ of James! She sent him a stunningly virulent paragraph of the finest pedigree, a scorching indictment worthy of Jane Austen or Agatha Christie (probably—she hasn't had time to read over that last one) and the best he can manage in response is _seven poxy words?_

Five words, if she's counting repeats, which she most certainly intends to.

 **No you are NOT sorry,** she starts to type, but finds herself distracted by a fresh stream of incoming messages.

 **no stop typing, i'm typing  
look, im going to give mary my car keys and i think she should come and get u. okay? u wont need to be sad or with a child murder surgeon or see any pervs on the train.**

 **I'd rather spend mynight with a murder surg**

"Ah," says Brian. "You're texting him."

The sound of his voice makes Lily jump and drop her phone on her dirty napkin, her elbow colliding painfully with the edge of the table.

She looks up, pink-faced, to see that her date has returned and is standing by his chair. He's watching her from beneath a pair of light, slightly raised brows, and a mildly amused smile is stretched across his face, as if he's her father, and he's just caught her drawing spirals on the living room wall with mother's expensive lipstick.

He's obviously not a date shitter, then.

How fortuitous for Kimmy the Nurse.

"I'm not, I'm texting my internet service provider," she lies, but her efforts to expunge the guilt from her voice fall entirely flat. No wonder she's struggling to find work that doesn't consist of lying on a cold metal slab with her eyes closed and latex lacerations glued to her neck—she's clearly a terrible actress. "How did you know?"

"You were typing like you were trying to punch a hole through your phone with your thumb," he points out, dropping heavily into his seat, _"and_ smiling. Which is a weird combination, honestly, but not difficult to understand, given the circumstances."

"You probably think I'm pathetic."

"Not really, I was checking Kimmy's Facebook in the loo."

"So we're both doomed," Lily declares, then laughs, but it's a faint, helpless thing that can't quite escape the hollow pit in her chest. "Good to know."

"Pathetic, miserable sods, the both of us."

"Care to celebrate said misery by splitting a dessert?"

"I think that sounds delightful," Brian agrees, mirroring her sad little laugh. "This place does an excellent crème brûlée, if you fancy it."

"Sure," she says, waving vaguely in Brian's direction. "I'm good for whatever."

James has sent her another text.

 **Lily?**

Just one. Just her name.

He's probably sitting on his comfortable-yet-comically-mismatched bed, slumped against the party wall they share, wishing he could hear her bustling about in her bedroom, straining to discern any sign of movement and wondering why she hasn't cared to respond yet. Worrying about her—about where she is and who she's with, and how she's going to make it back to Crouch End in one piece.

And doesn't _that_ fill her with a savage kind of pleasure?

 **Don't LILY ME first of all.  
I am not leaving thanks, brian and I are splitting a creeme bruel.  
Bruelee.  
How the fuck do you spell that fucking french nonsense.  
WHy were you so mad I don't understand what I did. Mary onel told me about brian when I got home anf she said whe was already on his way to the restaruatn and she wouldnt give me his number to cancel and hes a KID SURGEON it woudf have been so mean to stand him up**

Brian has summoned the waiter somehow—he has zipped towards their table with more zeal and enthusiasm than Lily has ever been able to manage at her waitressing job on even her better days—but she barely registers his appearance as he stops by her elbow to memorise their dessert order and take their empty plates. She's fully engrossed in her phone, waiting for James to reply with her breath caught in her mouth and her heart thundering like the clappers, conjuring up cutting and infuriated retorts before she even knows what he's going to say.

 **can we talk about this when u get home?  
soon?  
eat really fast  
please**

Fabulous. Now he wants her to eat too fast and fall victim to a bubbling cauldron of vengeful stomach acid.

 **I guess ALL I wanted to do was have some space so we could keep being friends because that's what you want and you meant the world to me and Mercury Mars and Pluto even though it's not a proper planet anymore which makes me so angry like why make it a planet then take it all aaway? Its cruel and PLuto deserves better. Pluto was a lie. YOu were a lie. You said my friendship mattered but I don't think it does  
Oh and by the way don Juan kissing you wasn't that great ANYWAY  
haha.**

 **now who's lying  
right?**

 **That last part was not true kissing you was a journey through the cosmos (inclusive of pluto) ansdf you have a beautful soft mouth but if its full of lies  
WHAT'S EVEN THE POINT?  
This is Lily Evans by the way you are AN ARsE**

"Arse," she stubbornly repeats, her voice low and resentful, like her phone is the receptacle for the curse she's laid upon his soul, smashing the _send_ button with the pad of her thumb before she drops it back on the napkin. _Arse. Liar. Shower-adjacent pervert. I hate you. I love you._ "No I don't."

"What?" says Brian.

She looks up quickly. "I don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't love him."

Brian blinks at her, just the once. It feels like a deliberate maneuver. "I never said you did."

"Because I don't, you know, and I'm drunk, so it doesn't even matter what I say." It's very important that Brian understands this. It's even more important that Brian believes this, so that Lily can believe it herself. If the grown-up surgeon with the creaseless chino trousers tells her that she doesn't love her neighbour, that's an indestructible truth. He's got a _degree._ An education. A stethoscope, probably. Someone put a stupid, flat little hat on the top of his head and handed him a rolled-up piece of paper, so he's qualified to make such crucial judgements. "Do you _know_ how often I've been drunk and in a toilet and I've met a girl in the queue and she's telling me she loves me after only five minutes?" She nods resolutely. Very serious business. "It's like, a thing we do. Girls. Men shit for days. Women talk. It's science. Sometimes I'll hold her hair back when she pukes. Also science. And then we say 'I love you' and then we leave and I forget she ever existed. This is like that. Science."

"Right," says Brian. He looks a bit overwhelmed.

"Right," Lily repeats. Her phone vibrates, sliding slightly off the raised fold of the thick linen napkin. "D'you mind if I check that? Only it's the internet, you know, and if Mary can't get Netflix—"

"I get it," says Brian, with a wave of his hand in her direction. "Go for it. It's fine."

She picks up her phone, which hasn't auto-locked in the time it has taken her to retrieve it. Her message thread with James is still still open.

 **Lily  
please just let me pick u up  
for pluto**

 **Brians taking me hoem. Bye.**

That'll shut him up, she thinks, for all of a second, before her screen lights up and his handsome, chiselled, _infuriating_ face flashes before her eyes.

Calling her, is he? Thinks he can one-up his way to success?

She's not standing for that fuckery.

"I have to take this," she says to Brian. "Important business call."

"Lily, I know it's not—"

"Important business call," she demurely repeats, and lifts her phone to her ear, adopting a falsely cheerful tone. "Sam's Pizza, Lily speaking. How can I be of service?"

"Not funny," comes James's flat voice on the other end of the line. "You—"

"Is that a deep pan or a thin crust?"

"Stop—"

"Pepperoni, you say?"

"Lily, let me come get—"

"Who is this? Jason? Jasper?" Lily lets out a tinkling laugh. "Pardon my insolence, it's just that I'm so used to hearing from that neighbour girl of yours—you know, the one you use when you're in the mood for pizza and sexual gratification? How's she been doing lately?"

"Patently unwell, I believe," James answers tightly, his cool voice taut and crisp. "Some tosser has let her get herself smashed at dinner, and she won't let anyone come get her. It's a real issue, Sam. A _real_ issue."

Lily's bogus buoyancy is dropped at once, replaced by her immediate indignation.

"Don't do that," she scolds him. "Don't play along like you think you're so fucking cute. This is _my_ game, it's _not_ your game. You don't get to act like you're the responsible fucking adult here, okay? _My_ game."

"I don't want to play any games!" James cries. "You started this one!"

"Tell that to all the mind games you've been playing."

"They aren't—" He stops. Takes in a sharp breath. "Lily. Please. It's...I know you're angry. You've every right to be angry. But if you'd _just_ —"

"Just what?" she interrupts. "Don't let the nice surgeon drive me home because it makes you jealous?"

"You do _not_ let strange men who daily work with sharp instruments and who are mates with _Eddie_ drive you home on a first date!" he returns hotly, sounding as if he's quickly running out of breath. "I'm going to your flat now. I'll give Mary my keys. There are _three_ Brians on Interpol's list of most dangerous criminals. Probably. Middle names count."

"Mary's not in," Lily lies, "and she'll slam the door in your face anyway." This part is very likely true. Mary is vengeful, and often quite hard on people who don't deserve it. But unfalteringly loyal to Lily. "Plus, Brian saved three lives today—"

"Actually," pipes up Brian, "I didn't—"

"I told you I had a business call, Brian," says Lily, and rises to her feet in search of privacy with very little grace, sadly, though she's so enthusiastically enthralled by her current rage that maintaining her poise seems like a long-forgotten ambition. She steps away from the table and makes a break for the ladies' room, weaving her way through the assembled circular tables with some difficulty. "Can't be that concerned about Interpol's most wanted if you're not bothered to get off your arse and pick me up yourself, can you? Important Fortnite tournament on tonight, is there?"

"I've offered a half-dozen times to come get you!" he objects instantly. "Apologies if your blatant dismissals gave me the incorrect impression you might _strangle_ me if you saw I was the one driving up. And I wouldn't even mind all that much," he adds drily. "Strangle away. Except you clearly can't drive _yourself_ home at the moment, so it would all rather defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?"

Lily reaches a long corridor, off which branch several doors which lead to kitchens and toilets and goodness knows what else—sub-zero temperature dungeons for the minimum-wage proletarians they kill and skin for their meat like Sweeney Todd's well-barbered victims, perhaps—and sags against the wall, digging the heels of her favourite silver shoes into the plush, carpeted floor.

"I don't want to see you," she tells him.

There's a heavy, significant silence. "Lily—"

"And I don't _need_ to drive myself home," she carries on, "because Brian—"

"The same fucking _Brian_ who's let you get completely smashed at your first dinner?" he whips back furiously, the sarcastic derision dripping from his every word. "Yes. _Brilliant_ Brian. Real bloody winner there, Lily!"

"This isn't about Brian, this is about how you don't think I can take care of myself—"

"I _never_ —"

"And how you want me to die alone—"

"I don't want you to die alone! Just because—"

"And then you have the audacity to get mad at me for not banging on your door the second I got home when you _caused_ all of this! You _lied_ to me—stupid wet shirt, stupid wrench—you didn't even _need_ it, James, you lied to get me into that stupid shower and then Eddie turned up and you couldn't follow through so you turned it all around on me!"

"I didn't turn it all around on you! I never said you did anything wrong that day in the shower!" He makes a short noise of frustrated resignation. "And, fine, I _was_ mad earlier, but that's only...that's only because I don't think it's so audacious to _care_ enough to want to bang on someone's door the second they get home. I think it's following through on _friendship_ —one that was really bloody important to me, in case you hadn't noticed! So maybe I have fucked up the rest of it, but I'm certainly not going to be sorry for _caring_ that I haven't seen or heard from you in days, and when I finally do, you're going off with bloody _Brian!"_

"Shut up about Brian," she says nastily. "I'm _sick_ of hearing about Brian. You're _not_ my boyfriend, James. You don't get to _not_ want me and not want anyone else to have me. You don't get to be jealous."

"If you want me to quit acting like a jealous boyfriend," James replies tersely, "then quit _dangling_ the likes of bastards like baby-saving Brian at me, trying to _make_ me one!"

"Dangling—"

"Yes! _Dangling!"_

"I didn't _want_ to be with Brian, I wanted to hang out with _you,_ and I'm not dangling anyone!"

"If you _wanted_ to see me, then why didn't you?"

"Because Mary made me go, okay?!" she cries, startling an elderly woman who has just emerged from the loo. "I got home and I was tired and she was all—surprise! Blind date! Can't stand him up or you're a bad person! And I'm glad I didn't stand him up because he's in love with a nurse and he's sad about it and he needed to talk and I helped, okay? I helped and it made me feel good and I needed to feel good."

James chokes. "Wait—so bloody Brian's been in love with some nurse this whole time?" He expels a strangled noise of victory. _"Ha!_ See? That! _Dangling."_

"I can dangle whoever I want, James—I'm not the one who wants to keep things platonic between us, that's _your_ prerogative. It's all bloody platonic with you, except for when you're jealous or you want sex and I'm just down the hall and you know I'll give you what you want because I've skewered myself on the end of your bloody hook. That's why Mary says you think I'm just a—that I'm just convenient. Just a sex part. Just a backup you're storing in your closet until you're in the mood to fuck someone. She says you're playing me and that I'm thick for not seeing it."

"And is that what you think?" James asks in a tone so flat, it hardly seems a question at all. "That I—Christ, a _sex part_." For some reason, he lets loose a humourless laugh. It peters out breathlessly. "I don't think you're a sex part, Lily. I think you're the most wonderful and brilliant and _insanely_ infuriating person I know because—because you make me _do_ insane things! This is _all_ insane. And I know that! I've made a mess of this, I get it, but if you honestly believe that me trying to shove aside attraction so that I don't lose you as a friend is treating you as a _sex part—"_ He huffs in a short breath. "Well, then you _are_ thick, and I know that's not true because you're six times smarter than me, and I can't even _yell_ at you without complimenting you, and I don't do that to sex parts!"

She wants to ask him why, if all of this is true, if she's so wonderful and brilliant and insanely infuriating, she's still not enough for him.

She wants to ask him why he doesn't want to be her boyfriend, for real and proper, even though nothing would really change if he was. They'd still share their dinner from the same pizza box, still curl up on the same couch to watch whatever sitcom strikes either of their fancies, still call each other up five minutes after parting at her door for the evening. It would be everything and nothing like it was before, because she could kiss him if he was her boyfriend, trail the tips of fingers across an expanse of warm, inviting skin, feel him inside her. Have all of him. Give him all of her. If he was her boyfriend.

James wants to kiss her, to touch her, to fuck her. Lily _knows_ he does.

She _wants_ to ask him to explain himself, to make sense of all of this confusion.

But she really doesn't want the answer.

"I don't—I wish I'd never met you," she says quietly, and squeezes her eyelids shut, blotting out the light. A hot and expansive pain is beginning to swell beneath her skull, prodding and pushing at the soft tendrils of her brain, hotly demanding that it yield some space, an angry cry echoing through its alcohol-fogged chambers. "You make my head hurt. My head hurts."

"Lily—"

"I am a whole and complete and _self-sufficient_ person, y'know," she says haughtily, "and I was before I met you. I didn't just—I didn't just burst into existence in your bathroom. Sometimes I even got drunk, and I always got home safe and I don't _need_ you looking out for me when you don't want—"

"I do recall a time or two when you _even got drunk_ ," James cuts in. "One memorable occasion, even. When you became a housebreaker. A _half-naked_ housebreaker. One who certainly got _somewhere_ safe— _my_ flat. _My_ bed!"

"You want me in your bed." _Arse. Liar. Shower-adjacent pervert. I hate you. I love you. No I don't._ "If I came home right now and knocked on your door and asked you to fuck me, you'd do it."

"That—that's _not_ —"

"Maybe I _should_ come home," she coldly suggests. "Might as well just do it, right? Final nail in the coffin? We could have gotten it over with ages ago, if you hadn't—"

"The fact that I'm trying to fix this between us and all you seem concerned with is a _final nail in the coffin_ is exactly why you _shouldn't,"_ James shoots back angrily. "And if you can't see that—Christ, I don't even know why I'm arguing with you about this! You're not going to remember any of it in the morning, anyway!"

"Don't hear you denying that you'd do it." She's not letting this point lie. She's getting an admission— _some_ admission, some infinitesimal modicum of the truth she's entitled to, even if she has to scrape it from the ground like a filthy scavenger. "Liar."

" _Liar?_ Because I—" His words cut off, replaced by a heady scoff with a cross and impatient air. "Come off it, Lily. Of _course_ I'd do it. You know I'd do it, I know I'd do it—everyone in the greater London metropolitan _area_ knows I'd do it—but that doesn't mean we _should_ —"

"Thank you," she says, with great delicacy despite the thrill of righteous, savage, painfully aroused victory shooting through her body, "but I have to get back to my date."

"You...wait—"

"Bye," she says flatly, and hangs up on him.

Then she turns off her phone, because he's going to call her back, and she can't be held responsible for what she'll do if she's forced to hear his voice again tonight.

Arse. Liar. Shower-adjacent pervert.

She hates him.

She loves him.

No, she doesn't.

* * *

She almost follows through on her threat.

Almost.

She's very nearly poised to do it—switch her phone back on, find an Uber, slams her fist against his front door until he wrenches it open and takes her roughly against the corridor wall, because what's decorum, or subtlety, or even other people, when she wants to fuck him this badly?—and she's justified her decision.

Justified, and then some.

It's _reasonable,_ or so she explains to Brian over a shared French dessert. Lily wants to be James's girlfriend. She wants a real relationship, the talking and the sharing and love, the kind of love that wraps them both in cushiony warmth and drizzles them in chocolate, and hand-holding, and weekends away in ivy-covered country cottages, and hours and hours and _hours_ of mundanely domestic errands that don't feel so mundane because he's there and he's hers and she's _got_ him, and dinners and snuggling and maybe another cat, if Algernon could accept that...which he probably can't, so she's prepared to concede that point.

But James doesn't want any of that, it seems.

As best as Lily can tell, he wants to have his cake and eat it. Wants her body and her brain, but couldn't give less of a shit about her heart.

Friends with benefits, she thinks it might be called.

Except...except she _can't_ be his friend, not now, not when friendship is a chisel intent upon hacking away at her soul, so she might as well go home and let him screw her brains out just the once, before they're forced to make strangers of one another, and then they'll both get _half_ of what they actually want.

Brian gives her his full attention as she raves and rants, allows her to plead her case without a word of interruption, but when it's all done, when she's holding down the power switch on her phone, he quickly reaches over and plucks it from her hands.

"You don't deserve _half_ of what you want," he points out, regarding her with an unquenchable sternness which brings to mind a formidable schoolmarm, "you deserve the full thing, and besides, you're really quite drunk, so we'd better get you home so you can sleep it off."

She's very drunk at this point—trashed, really, in a horrific departure from Three Years Ago Lily, who would have shaken off this drama and taken herself home at a sensible hour. Three Years Ago Lily wouldn't have been out this late in the first place. She would have been back in her old flat in Peckham, wiping the last remnants of stage makeup from her face and going to bed with her sense of hope in the world still intact.

Three Years Ago Lily still thought that she could make it as an actress.

Three Years Ago Lily would not have spent her free time on a Claire Foy helmed crime procedural emailing her agent about modelling opportunities just so she could afford to keep paying her rent.

Three Years Ago Lily believed that she fully deserved the things she wanted, but Present Day Lily would have been lucky to get her hands on _half._

Still, despite her drunken state and her somber acceptance of the slow decay of her life and common sense, that's too nice a compliment to deliberately ignore, and she's too touched by Brian's quiet insistence to disagree out loud. She is _so_ very drunk, so amped-up on indignation, on her fear and triumph and her own hurt feelings, on that towering structure of flesh and sinew and bone who has so enslaved her, he who has somehow manipulated her nerve-endings to respond frantically to the sound of his voice, or his scent, or even something so innocuous as his name. She's packed a month's worth of adrenaline into one strange evening, so her tired, miserable body could flip-flop either way, but Brian has a soothing, sensible air that leaves her feeling boneless.

He's such a calming influence, Brian. Nothing like her—nothing like that idiot next door.

Nothing like James.

God, she _adores_ that name.

James, so warm and darling, James, drips from her tongue like honey. She's caught on the end of his line and flopping helplessly, half-dreaming of reasons to forgive him, starved for him and obsessed with him and how _dare_ he? Who told him that he could yank her heart from her chest and tuck it away in a lock-box of his making? She gave him no permission to leave her in this state.

Arse. Liar. Shower-adjacent pervert. She hates him. She—no. She's not doing that again.

She hates him.

She...wants him.

That's better. Much better. Especially since there's sturdy, dependable Brian, who sees her all the way home like the most proper of gentlemen and wrestles Lily away from James's apartment door, regaling her with such enlightening statements as, "you don't want to do this while you're drunk" and "you'll only regret it in the morning," which she probably will, he's right.

"You're very clever," she tells him, as she hands over her keys. It seems pointless to attempt to wrangle them herself in the state she's in. Brian performs complex surgeries on the chests of tiny children—he can probably put a key into a lock without much difficulty.

"Thank you," he replies.

"You're very welcome, good sir."

"You're very clever too."

"You think so?" Lily scoffs loudly, uncharacteristically happy to splash about in self-deprecation. "I've been rude to you, I had a fight on the phone in the middle of a fancy restaurant, I'm completely trashed—"

"That's all very true, but I understand what you're going through, remember?" Her apartment door clicks and swings inwards, just as Brian inclines his head in the direction of James's flat. "We are none of us sane in love. Would that we could be, life would be much easier."

"That sounds like a quote from somewhere."

Brian shrugs, and tugs her forwards, successfully hauling her into her flat. There's a little bit of a stumble as she crosses the threshold, but luckily, she does not have to rely upon herself to remain upright, and she'd kicked off her pretty silver shoes in the elevator.

She will break no ankles today.

"Hey, you're home!" she hears Mary call out, and the crack of space between the living room door and its white-painted frame is quickly thrown open, revealing her pyjama-clad friend. "How did the—"

The words die in Mary's mouth as she comprehends the sorry sight in front of her eyes.

"Ah, hello," says Brian stiffly, his arm still firmly fastened around Lily's back, and he hitches her up like she's a baby on his hip. "Mary, isn't it? Nice to finally meet you. She's had a little too much to drink."

This is why it never would have worked out with Brian, Lily reflects. He's trying to force her to comply with the laws of gravity at a fraught and emotional time in her life, and she, for one, does not appreciate his efforts. If she wants to fall down on the floor, she can fall down on the floor.

"I can see that," says Mary.

"I tried talking her out of it, but—"

"She's a law unto herself, I wouldn't worry about it," Mary counters, waving the matter away. "Tell her what to do and she'll always do the opposite."

"I thought that maybe she should get some sleep."

Someone is playing smooth jazz in the living room.

It's probably Eddie, because he is the fucking _worst._

"You're right. Thank you for bringing her back," Mary agrees, and moves toward them at speed, holding both arms out to receive Lily. "I'll get her to bed."

"Don't wanna sleep," Lily grumbles, and tosses her shoes across the hall.

"Yes you do, darling."

"No I don't," she insists, but allows herself to be shifted into her friend's care. "But you don't listen, do you? You _never_ listen. Never at all."

Mary grunts, swaying slightly as Lily flops into her arms. "Time for bed, darling."

"I didn't _want_ to go on a stupid blind date."

"I know you didn't."

"I want to be with James and you know I do and you don't care because you've got your opinions and no one can _ever_ say you're wrong—"

"Bit of a pot and kettle situation there," says Mary quietly. She wraps one arm around Lily's waist and guides her away from the front door. "But that's not important. Brian, if you want to pop into the living room, Eddie's just—"

"James is a good person!" Lily passionately continues. Somehow, she and Mary are moving towards Lily's bedroom at a pretty good pace, even though Mary is struggling to keep them both upright, and Lily is dragging her feet to spite her. "He always smells nice, and he uses the recycling bin, and he doesn't want a motorcycle—"

"A motorcy—"

"Yes, Mary," says Lily haughtily. "Motorcycles are so dangerous—all that open space and hard road around you and you're going so fast—"

"How is this remotely important?"

"I'm just _saying,_ it'd be one less thing to worry about!"

Mary doesn't attempt to hide a derisive laugh. "You're so fucked."

"I could've been, if you'd let me do what I want."

"I doubt that you could do what you wanted right now even if I let you," Mary informs her, and Lily finds herself being unceremoniously shoved in the direction of her bed. "You're welcome to try, though. I could do with some entertainment."

Lily flings her purse onto her bed and flops down after it, face-first, her arms curling around her duvet to hug it to her chest.

"Did you wash my sheets?" she wonders aloud. The telltale jasmine scent of Mary's favourite fabric softener is wafting up her nostrils, and it's far too fresh to be a remnant from last week.

"I did," says Mary. Lily can hear the laughter in her voice. "Y'know, just in case you and Brian..."

 _"Gross!"_

"What's so gross about Brian?! He's lovely!"

"Nothing's gross about Brian, but he's not my type and you know he isn't." Lily lets go of the duvet and turns onto her back, her eyes flicking up to the bare white ceiling. She ought to find some glow-in-the-dark stars to stick up there, so she can spend the rest of her life regressing to her childhood whenever the sun goes down. "Why's Eddie listening to smooth jazz?"

"Because he's worldly."

"He's not fucking _worldly."_

"Fine, he isn't, but you're in no position to judge his tastes when the bloke you fancy listens to depressing Christmas music in the dead of July."

"He listens to…" Lily listlessly repeats, her voice trailing off into a slow exhalation.

Arse. Liar. Shower-adjacent pervert.

She hates him she hates him _she_ _hates him._

She hates him _so much,_ because she…

No.

 _No._

Lily scrambles up and twists her body backwards, propped up on her knees, grazing the wall behind her headboard with the tip of her nose. She balls her hand into a fist and pounds the wall in front of her face—once, twice, several more times in quick succession—each vengeful, pointed slam of her fist against the plaster replacing the last before the sound it makes has time to fade from the atmosphere.

"I'M HOME, YOU LYING SHIT!" she bellows, and adds a few more bangs for good measure. "HAPPY NOW?"

She'll let them take a limb before James Potter wins this battle, before she finds herself scrambling on her hands and knees to navigate a trench from which escape is impossible, before she lets herself feel... _that._ She'll give her limbs and her bones and her frayed-wire nerves, her heart and her eyes and her fingers, but she will not let him win. He will not make her love him. He _won't._

If she could just keep her hair, though, that would be nice. She'd rather not give that up.

"I've never seen anything so tragic," says Mary flatly.

"You're _dating_ something so tragic," Lily retorts, throwing herself dramatically upon her pillows, curling up like a kitten. "Where's my phone?"

"In your purse, right next to you."

"In my—" She lifts her head slightly, sees the aforementioned purse, and her hand shoots out to rummage for her phone amongst stray receipts and loose mascara wands. "Oh. Thanks."

"You're welcome, nutcase." Mary's voice begins to fade. She's retreating to the living room. Lily's bedroom door has been left ajar, swaying gently back and forth. "Don't fall asleep in your clothes."

"I'll do what I want!" Lily shouts after her, but she's found her phone and is already less than invested in this chat. Her fingers are already moving, dancing to the rhythm of her swansong before James can get to her first. She's a venerated blacksmith at the top of her game, forging one last, great, scorching hot poker to press against a wound in the chest of a man she cares for intensely.

 **If youre wondering what the knosking was for I am MAKING MY DISPLEASUR KNOWN OKAY?  
Als o you were wroried about me geting back so jsut letting you know I am safe so yuo don't worry.  
But I am STILL SO ANGREY our friendshio is broekn forevr like the nose of The sphinx of Giaz  
*Giza  
Night night xoxox**

She hears movement in the room behind her. Perfect. Brilliant. He deserves to have his sleep interrupted. Then she turns her phone off, again. Denies him a response. Again.

Hah.

That'll show James what for, she thinks, and it's the very last lucid idea that frisks giddily through her brain before she drifts into a vodka-soaked sleep, the phone discarded clumsily on her pillow.

That'll show him.

* * *

James does not sleep much that night.

He tries. Truly, he does. He's livid, at first, just as much as he's ravaged. He yells at Algernon when he can't yell at Lily because she's turned off her phone, or maybe blocked him—a litany of furious raves about _stupid_ smart women, _goddesses_ of guile and disaster and _wonder_ , who only want his admittedly very fit and constantly aching for her _body_...but what about his _soul?_ he demands of his cat, who hacks up a furball in response. What about his...alright, maybe _half_ his heart, he's not really sure, and he doesn't want to think too much about it now, fractions were never his strong suit, and also she's half a _monster,_ so what does it matter? Bloody _Brian_ and his bloody _lover nurse_ ought to go in and fix her, and James will only bring flowers to her hospital bed the _once_ after surgery because that's what she _deserves._

Also, maybe some chocolates.

Can people eat chocolates after heart surgery? Well, he'll bring them anyway, and if all she can do is stare at them longingly from her cot, _coveting_ the sweets, all the better.

 _How did this go so wrong?_

James doesn't know, but Drunken Lily had said everything James had thought—feared—Sober Lily might. Nothing about a real relationship or fixing the friendship he'd thrown a (literal) wrench into, just needling barbs calling him a liar and heated threats to show up at his door to... _god_. She'd prodded and taunted and pushed him, and was still somehow _hurt_ —upset by it all, by _him_ —and James wants to take objects from around his room and begin pelting them one after another against their party wall until she does exactly as she's threatened and shows up at his flat so that they can…they can...but she's not even _there_. She's out with bloody _Brian_. _She's_ the liar, throwing that out there but never intending to act on it.

And the worst bit? She's correct. James has no right to complain, not even a whit. He is not her boyfriend. He is not wholly confident that she's ever wanted him to be—and why should she? He's an emotional fuck-up, and she's got a bloke who saves sick _children_ for a living sharing her swotty French desserts. And even if she may not, one day, be _totally_ opposed to the idea of James tagging along on her life's journey...he still does not want to get there thinking with his prick first. He doesn't want sexual frustration to be the driving force when she won't even _text_ him when it counts and is still agreeing to go on dates with other people. That's no way to build this.

So he's angry with her. Really, _really_ angry.

But...she'll make it home alright, won't she?

At some point, Algernon leaves the room like he's never been so disgusted, and James falls into his bed for a fitful attempt at slumber.

Except he doesn't slumber.

Or, he does, some, but it's a haunted sleep—a fitful doze plagued by hazy visions of James's own greatest dream and nightmare: Lily, in her pretty flowered dress, the strap of her lacy red bra visible just a slice, standing tightly drawn and furious at his threshold. She is fairly quaking with emotion, glares at him with that blazing emerald stare, opens her mouth to unleash unholy hell on his undeserving arse...except he doesn't let her. He doesn't let her get even a word out, simply cuts her off completely with his mouth, kissing her—his whole _body_ , suddenly, just on and around hers. In the apartment corridor. Clumsy, shuffled steps until her back hits the far wall. And she _lets_ him. Her long arms curling around him, her mouth feverishly matching his, harder, _more_. Clothes begin to fall like a brisk spring rainstorm: shirt here, shoe there, _ping, ping, ping_. He thrusts himself against her and she thrusts back. He says some very embarrassing things—emotional embarrassing, not dirty embarrassing...though he says some of those too. So does she. They are—it's—

When the furious slams of hands and fists sound above his head around eleven, James springs from his flagrant sex dream like a shot, feeling as if he's just received a glorious reprieve and a torturous punishment.

She's hollering at him. Hollering...and fucking hell, he _aches_ with it. Aches a _lot_ , truthfully, in several key places, but it's pathetic how needy he abruptly feels for the muffled sound of her taunting voice. Whatever sleep he's managed has successfully stripped him of his blustering fury. He wrestles for it, but the indignation is mist on air. All that's left is a husk of a man, sexually and emotionally stunted and relieved that she's home in one raving piece.

 _Bing. Bing. Bing._

Bleary-eyed, James grapples for his phone, reading the texts that come through, one after the other.

Oh, she's _cross._ It's a lot—typos and caps and historical allusions and _anguish_ —she's so _angry_ with him—and there at the bottom—

 **Night night xoxox**

 _xoxox_

That's…

Right.

He tries to call her, but she must have turned off her phone again because it goes straight to voicemail. He listens raptly as her lovely voice requests he leave a message and momentarily considers suffocating himself with a pillow.

Asphyxiation by bedding is too good for him. Public beheading by a dull and blood-crusted guillotine is too good for him. He deserves...something much, much worse. He can't think of it now—it's quite dark, he's emotionally ravished, and what little sleep he's managed has been anything but peaceful—but he'll concoct a suitable death scenario when he's better equipped for clever pith.

By two a.m., he is reading and rereading their texts. He plays and replays their phone call from earlier in his head. The elevator scene. The shower. All of it.

By five, he's at the Tesco up the road, scouring the aisles with the sleep-deprived students and irritatingly industrious mothers for baking supplies.

By seven-thirty, he's chucked five failed loaves of banana bread into the bin and has been back to Tesco twice more for replenished supplies.

"The _fuck—"_ a furious Sirius shouts as he storms out of his bedroom at approximately eight thirty-seven, voice competing against the repeated blaring of the kitchen fire alarm. Red-faced and wild-eyed, he takes one look at the flour-covered James, frantically waving a dishrag at the blinking alarm, surrounded by more bowls and pans than Sirius likely thought they owned, and promptly reverses back through his door, slamming it closed behind him.

James takes a nap after the fire alarm. He deserves it. But a few replenishing hours later, he's back at it again.

He needs to get serious. He grabs his laptop from his bedroom and turns on the Coldplay Spotify channel. To Chris Martin's soulful crooning, he carefully follows the recipe he'd grabbed from the internet. This one seems...better. Sort of. He doesn't set the bread or the kitchen on fire, in any case, which is improvement. And though the loaf definitely presents with a distinct lopsidedness that would undoubtedly leave Paul Hollywood sneering with glee, it at least _smells_ correct, which James reckons is as close as he's going to get to proper Apology Banana Bread.

She'll get what he's trying to do.

Apologize.

She'll forgive him.

...Won't she?

"How's it look?" he asks Algernon, who has recently reappeared, though they are both quite aware that it is on a completely probationary basis.

Algernon licks his paw and purrs a short sigh.

That's nearly three stars in Algernon's book.

James will take it.

The heat of the fresh bake will only last so long, and in the mess James has made of the kitchen, he can't for the life of him locate where he's stashed the cling film. He gives up after a few minutes, too antsy and anxious to waste further time searching. He locates his best plate instead—the one with the fancy swirls and the cats chasing yarn—and plops the bread at its centre. He changes his flour-crusted shirt, swipes what grime he can off his jeans, and makes for the flat door.

 _You can do this_ , he pep-talks himself, entering the corridor and turning briskly towards Lily's flat. _She was cross yesterday, but you can fix it. You can_ —

 _Christ_ , she lives close. James stops in front the the closed portal, hands not quite steady around the rounded plate. He takes a deep breath. Moment of truth, then. _It's fine. You'll fix it. It's fine_. Throwing nerves to the wind, he reaches up to knock firmly on the door.

For several long moments, all is silent.

He counts the seconds passing.

There are a lot of them.

More seconds than he was anticipating, honestly.

— _thirteen, fourteen, fifteen_ — _hell_ —

Ah!

 _Footsteps._

They're there, faintly, sounding in time to the staccato beat of his pounding pulse. James can't keep from leaning in, then barely has time to snap back straighter, bolster himself for come what may, when the door abruptly swings open.

Open...on the scrunched up face of a deeply scowling Mary.

Mary, who immediately tries to slam the door in his face.

" _Oi_ —!" he shouts, recklessly thrusting his foot between the closing door and the stalwart frame, wincing as his poor trainer is squashed with the vengeful force of a furious friend. "Wait—Mary! Hold on!"

"Don't think I won't break your foot if I have to—"

"Go ahead," James challenges, wiggling his poor pummelled limb, as much to try to get some feeling back into it as to fanagle his way further inside. He grits his teeth against the pain. "Might save me the trouble of sticking my foot in my mouth so often, yeah? But once you've amputated, at least let me hobble inside, alright?"

Mary is glaring as if she'd like nothing more than to follow through on her threat and then some, but she reluctantly pulls the door away from his foot.

James sighs in relief.

"Thank you," he says.

"You can hobble back to your own flat," she replies coldly, with a self-important toss of her dark hair. "Lily doesn't want to see you."

"I know," he says, though his chest burns with the admission. "But if there's any hope of changing that, I've got to start somewhere. She doesn't need to see me. Just...hear me. And my thousand apologies. If she...wants."

"What are you hoping to apologise for today?" Mary taunts, long arms folding over her chest. "Treating her like a sex doll? Calling her a shitty friend? I only ask because you've been _such_ a tremendous prick on so many fronts that you might have lost track."

"I didn't—" He bites his tongue. "Yes," he amends, tight and flushed. "All that. Most of it. But I'd really rather go through the annotated index with Lily herself, if it's all the same to you." He pauses again, recognises he's got to do a bit groveling to an unexpected party. "Mary, please. You've got every right to play devoted gatekeeper. I know I fucked this up—I _know._ And if she wants me to go, fine. But I'd like to hear it from her. Please."

Mary doesn't respond at once, but studies his face intently for a good ten seconds.

"Your fight almost ruined her date last night," she says, having evidently come to some private conclusion, "but she pulled it together. Good thing, too, because Brian's a great guy. A surgeon. That's a proper, grown-up job, you know. Lily said so herself."

The words make James feel like vomiting, right there in the flat threshold, an unwanted topping for the unfilmed banana bread. But he quells the reaction with a firm scold. He's had hours to think about this. Bloody Brian could not be the point here. It was about trying to salvage his _friendship_ with Lily, above and beyond anything else. He'd deal with half or whole or hearts or souls later. He'd accept the consequences of his words, his stupendously foolish and confusing actions, and just try to make it up to her. If Lily felt...if she wanted to date someone else... _Brian_ …

James presses his lips together, cuts off that road of thought.

He'd find a way to be okay with it.

Somehow.

Later.

"I hope Lily had fun—"

"No you don't," Mary says bluntly, like she can read the every thought on his face. "You hope she hates the guy and never sees him again. You picked that fight with her because she was going on a date and you were jealous, because you might not want her—for whatever batshit insane reason I can't even _begin_ to understand—but you don't want anyone else to have her."

"Mary." He gives a hopeless shrug, unable to refute anything she's saying—the foundations are too true, even if her conclusions are tremendously off—but confirming it is equally as impossible. "Please. Just let me talk to her. There are explanations to give, but don't you think she deserves to hear them first?"

His stalwart pleas seem to be making some kind of hesitant headway. Mary steps from foot to foot, not yet moving from the doorway, but not so intractable, either. Her blue eyes narrow on him. Eventually, she lets out a weighted sigh. "Look, under any other circumstances, I'd love to stand here and watch you crash and burn, but I'm super late for a meeting and I have to leave, so you can't come in because I'm _not_ leaving her alone with you. I'm sick to death of watching her be kind to shitty, undeserving men who take and take and treat her like—"

"James?"

The quiet sound of his name sees James's eyes darting up, his body seizing in taut, tingling awareness. His gaze catches on the familiar figure who has suddenly materialized behind Mary in the doorway.

His heart skips.

 _Lily._

She looks tired—and no less beautiful for it, but still, her skin holds a slightly sickly pallor and her pretty emerald eyes are distinctly red and puffy—garbed in an oversized grey sweatshirt and her favourite pyjama shorts, the ones printed with innumerable cartoon dinosaurs in various states of play. Her long red hair is tied in a ponytail which falls over one shoulder, but most of it has escaped and hangs loosely around her face, as if she slept on it and has only recently dragged herself out of bed.

Without pausing to think on it, he bumps gently but determinedly past Mary.

"Lily." Her name on his lips is a plea in itself, a benediction. "Are you—I'm so—"

The words get clogged. _Shit._ He'd practiced this, earlier, but it was clearly all for naught. He's forgotten everything at the first sight of her. Flustered, he thrusts forward the plate.

"I brought banana bread," he babbles. "Made it. For you. Apology banana bread. Like the last time—I mean, that was you, of course. And also not...this was so— _I_ was so...worse. This was worse. I'm _so_ —"

"Oh, for _fuck's_ sake," Mary snaps, striding between them. "Lil, darling, you shouldn't have to deal with this hungover. Just go and take your bath like you wanted. I'll handle—"

"It's fine," says Lily quietly, hugging her arms to her chest. She toes the wooden floor with her stockinged feet as she nods towards the front door. "I'll deal with this. Go to your meeting."

"You don't have to—"

"I want to."

"Darling, you've got _no_ obligation to forgive this prick for anything."

"Mary," says Lily, in a tone which, while softer and less snippish than it might have been were she operating at full, non-hungover strength, is no less firm and formidable. "I said I'll deal with him myself."

 _Deal with him_ sounds ominous, but perhaps less so than what Mary might have planned. There's a long silence while the brunette studies Lily for signs of weakness.

She comes to a swift conclusion.

"Great," Mary says, as if she's been sentenced to the executioner's rope. "Just fabulous." She picks up her purse from the hall table and slings the strap over her shoulder. "Behave yourself," she warns James as she turns, jabbing a finger directly at his face. "She'll tell me if you're a wanker, and I know exactly where you live."

James can only nod, too revved on the moment to do a response justice. He can't say he doesn't deserve the warning, but he needs to save his best apologies for Lily. He can deal with Mary and her flagrant disapproval later.

"I'll text you in a bit," Mary says to Lily, sending her a very pointed look. "To check in."

Then she stomps forward and leaves them to it, finally, though she takes great care to slam the door behind her—a message of clear and present anger—as she departs.

James uses the sound to bolster himself, a cross reminder that he's here for a purpose and that purpose is to make this up to Lily and explain himself in any way he can. His fingers squeeze around the banana bread plate as he turns back to her, but instead of an opening apology, the start of many contrite monologues he will shower her with, the first thing out of his mouth is: "You look really pretty."

Which was...not the plan.

True, though.

Lily's flat, softly sleepy expression does not change, but a light pink flush blossoms behind the dusty little freckles which dance across her nose. "That's not what my mirror told me."

"Then you need a new mirror," James returns, but doesn't know how he got here—this isn't what he meant to open with, despite that she _is_ , and she _does_ , and she ought to know it. "But that's not—different issue. Not the...that's not why I'm here. Obviously."

"Aren't you?" The look on her face is impossible to read. She idly shuffles around some more. "Pity, could have done with the ego boost. I've been told I was outrageously drunk and uncouth last night, so my self-esteem's not exactly riding high."

"Told?" The possibility that she may _actually_ not recall the details of the previous evening abruptly occurs to him. "Do you...not remember?"

She shrugs noncommittally. "I remember enough."

"Right." _Enough_ is telling. "Well, at least you've the excuse of alcohol. I was outrageous and uncouth and only have myself to blame." He takes a cautious step forward with the quip—just the one. She's cool and joking, but it may only be tiredness keeping her from seeing him immediately back out the door. He needs to navigate this wisely. "I'm here...well, to apologise within an inch of my life, honestly. Though Mary was right. You've no obligation to accept, or even listen, if you...if you don't want to. But I'd like to. If you'll let me."

She doesn't answer him right away, merely gazes, her bleary eyes fixed unblinkingly on his face, still completely unreadable, still potentially situated at any point between immediate forgiveness and expelling him from her flat in a sudden rage, hell-bent on never seeing his face again.

She'd have every right to, he reminds himself, even as every fibre of his being prays _please, please, please._

Then she lets out a long, exhausted sigh, dropping her arms to her sides.

"Did you say that was banana bread?" she asks, tilting her head to the left.

Blinking, James glances down at the sad little loaf. It's obvious lopsidedness has never looked so stark.

"Er, sort of." He openly winces. "If one isn't judging too firmly by appearances. It's the best of the approximately forty-five trial loaves I have scattered about my kitchen right now, in any case, and it does smell correct, and Coldplay was playing the whole time, so—" He gives a one-shouldered shrug, thrusts out the plate again. "A symbolic gesture whose present state reflects my own."

She looks down at the loaf for a bit, then back up at him.

"Right then." She holds out one hand. "No point in standing over there like you're worried I'll infect you with my lurgy. You can't catch a hangover. Come and give it here."

His flicker of a smile comes on a rush of relief, the stronghold of tension keeping James's shoulders taut finally relaxing some with the invitation. He feels like he's just successfully managed the first hurdle of a thousand-meter stretch. His feet move closer, step by step, until he's within arm's length of her.

He wants to reach out and pull her to him and ramble his apologies into her hair as he sucks in her coconut scent, but that's hurdle nine territory, and he's got to pace himself.

"Lily." He doesn't even bother thrusting the plate out again. "I am so—you have no idea how sorry I am. All of it, you were right. You were _so_ right—"

"James—"

"No, listen—"

"Give me the banana bread," she cuts in, and takes a step toward him. Her other hand joins the first, palms up, and she looks rather like a beautiful, scraggly orphan waiting for a second helping of gruel. "Please?"

He doesn't know why he's clinging to the plate. He doesn't know why he isn't kissing her feet in gratitude rather than pushing to expel another apology. He doesn't know, but he still finds himself protesting. "No. Not yet. I still have to apologise for—"

She lets out a loud, exasperated huff of air and boldly takes the plate from his hands.

"Thank you," she says pointedly, and turns away from him—only briefly—to set the plate down on the hall table where Mary's purse once sat. Her eyebrows lift in question when she returns to him, resuming her position of only moments before, stationed squarely within easy reach of his arms. "How many loaves did you say you'd tried before that one? Thirty?"

"I think I set thirty on fire alone," James replies grimly. "I'm surprised you didn't hear the fire alarm beeping all morning. But that's not the point."

"I was probably in a drunken coma. What _is_ the point?"

"That I was acting like a complete prick yesterday. That I was caught off guard when I saw you in the elevator, and I didn't know what it meant, so I just...got angry and...all the rest. You didn't deserve that. I'm sorry. Just—so _fucking_ sorry."

"I know, James, and I'm sorry too—"

"You shouldn't be sorry. I'm the one who's handled it all wrong from the beginning. You were right about that day in the shower, too. I started it, and then I was being confusing, and you were…you had every reason to question it. And I clearly wasn't listening enough afterwards. All you asked for was space, a few days to think, and I flipped over an hourglass and had your sand running out from the moment I left the flat. That wasn't fair. So you didn't text? Or bang on my door the second you crossed into London? It seems so bloody stupid now to have made so much of it, but I just…" _Wanted you. Needed you. Felt like someone had taken an axe to my chest._ "...panicked."

"I understand that," she says, calmly, strongly. "Really, I do. I didn't yesterday because everything felt immediate and painful and shitty, and consuming my weight in cocktails didn't help, but how am I supposed to be upset that you were worried about losing me?"

 _"So_ worried," James emphasizes, like she needs the reminder. "Psychotically so."

Her lips seem to quiver at the corners. "Yeah."

"But...that's not all you were upset about." He lifts a hand grimly to his hair, pulling at the short strands in back. He feels itchy at where he needs to turn this, how it cuts a slice of his heart—in all its contradictory glory—out there for her to dissect. But she deserves an explanation. A _full_ one. She's being far too kind to him right now. "I couldn't stand the idea of losing you, but I also...you were going on a _date_ , and that just...well, you saw. I know what I said that day in your flat—and I _meant_ it. I don't want to lose you for anything else. But I was still…" He sighs. Just needs to tear off the bandage, _say_ it. "Jealous. And really uncomfortable and barbed with it. And you didn't deserve that, either."

The word _jealous_ seems to awaken something in her, he can tell by shift in her stance, the lift of her chin, the slight clench in one side of her jaw.

It's the hint of last night's anger, perhaps, that he's been looking for this whole time. That he's wanted from her,somehow, much as he fears it.

"You _say_ that," Lily begins, with a sudden warmth, though it seems to surprise her and exhaust her all at once and she hastily presses her lips together. She shakes her head. "Nevermind. Nothing."

"It's _not_ nothing," James gently protests. "What?"

It seems to take her an age to respond, whether she is struggling to compose a response or because she has one that she doesn't wish James to know, he is unsure. One hand lifts to rub idly at her eye.

Her fingers are clenched inside her sleeves.

"I have no idea what, honestly," she admits. "I never know what you want. I never know where you're coming from. I feel like I've—like I have half the information, like you're just expecting me to figure out what's missing by myself."

"I know," James says, cringing again. "I've confused myself half the time. And I don't mean to be that way. I just don't know how...to make both sides of this work yet. Not without risking something. Because these things go _wrong_ , Lily." He anxiously punctuates the word. "I've _had_ them go wrong, before, when you just jump into an attraction and don't think any of it through. And then everything goes to shit and you've got to make strangers of each other, and maybe that's been all right with other people, but...not with you. I couldn't stand it if that happened with you. So I've just been...trying to avoid that. Poorly. With all the other emotions still in play."

"Oh," she says. "Right."

As her gaze slips away from his face and lands, vaguely unfocused, on an indeterminate spot some several feet away, she seems to fall still.

She's thinking hard, he can tell—those industrious cogs in her marvellous brain spinning at lightning quick speed, a wholly silent whirring that he dare not interrupt. Wherever her mind has taken her, whatever it is she's dwelling upon, his input is clearly not required.

"This—um," she eventually pipes up, then stops to clear her throat. A violently pink hue is pooling across her neck. "When it went wrong. Before." Her lips twist in displeasure. "Did she live in this building?"

James hesitates, not certain they ought to trek into the specifics. But she's asked. And he owes her answers. Whatever honest answers he can give her without confessing anything that will terrify her away.

"Yes," he confirms shortly, begrudgingly. "But that's not...you and me, all"—he motions between them—" _this_. It's not like anyone else. I would never want you to think you were like anyone else."

He flushes with the declaration, but strides past it quickly. Saying anything more might reveal too much, and they're not ready for that. _Clearly_ aren't ready for that.

"But, yes," he continues, "there was someone who lived in the building. A few years ago. And I know a huge part of why it all went to shit is because I just went with what felt good and easy, rather than what was right, and we're _better_ than that, you and me. From the start, you've been...so important, to me. More important than _good_ and _easy_ , yeah?" Then, because he can't help it, adds ruefully, "Though _good_ and _easy_ have been...supremely tempting. Still working on that."

"Good and easy," Lily repeats, then lets out a humourless laugh. She's still not looking at him. "I guess one slip in a couple of months is somewhat reasonable. She must have been much harder to resist."

"Lily," James returns flatly, "I nearly jumped you in the _shower_. One does not do that unless they've already been slipping pretty firmly from the start. And you know it."

"So she _was_ harder to resist."

It's such a laughable conclusion, James can't help letting out a short snort. "Do you honestly need me to list all the ways in which you are a very hard person to resist? That's not the point of this conversation, you know."

"I can make it the point of this conversation if I want to," says Lily primly. "What was her name?"

James hesitates again, then answers, "Sasha."

 _"Christ."_ Lily hugs her arms across her chest as if she's staving off an oncoming chill, and laughs for a second time. It's a sorely empty sound. "Sasha. Of course her name is Sasha. Of course her name is fun and sexy, not dusty and old-fashioned like mine. _Sasha."_ She repeats it like it's a curse word she finds particularly offensive. "Does she still live here?"

"No," James answers quickly. "She moved out ages ago. And I haven't seen her since. Haven't _wanted_ to." He throws her a look. "And 'Lily' isn't dusty or old-fashioned. It's lovely. _Classic_."

"That's just another term for 'old-fashioned,' so you can spare me the etymology lesson," she says, then quickly shakes her head. "That was mean, sorry, and I didn't—I mean, this—this Sasha person, was she your girlfriend or were you just...y'know?" She sighs, and drags her eyes up to meet his, and looks a little sickened. "Were you just shagging her?"

James pauses again, lifts a hand to scratch at the back of his neck. "I mean...technically, yes, we were dating. Rushed right into both, honestly, which was part of the problem."

Lily makes a strange movement, quick and convulsive, like she's trying to suppress a shudder, and lifts one arm to scrub at the tip of her nose with her sleeve.

"So I'm a sequel," she says flatly—quietly, like some private utterance that he's accidentally overheard. "Huh."

"Sequel?" James drops his hand, shakes his head incredulously. "You are not a _sequel_. You're your own bloody bestseller, Lily Evans. That's not...look, you don't need to be jealous of Sasha Peters." Though the fact that she might be— _is_ , he can _see_ it, in the way she's moving, evading, griping—makes something prideful roar in victory inside his chest. _It's not just him. She feels it, too._ "Is that what this is?"

"Oh, no, I'm not jealous," says Lily at once, her voice rising half an octave, dripping with such derision that it seems foolish to assume that she's made any attempt to hide it. The hand which has been rubbing at her nose lands squarely on her heart. "I _love_ thinking about you with other women, actually—makes me want to vomit and scrub my skin raw with a wire brush, which as you know is _super_ fun—and thanks for telling me her full name, by the way. Can't wait to look her up on Facebook and obsess about how pretty she is."

"You're much prettier than she is," is all James can think to say, blinking.

"I'll make up my own mind on that score, thanks," she dryly responds, before another biting laugh escapes her. "This is just what I deserve for dangling Brian in front of your nose, you know. Apologies, and all that. I'm just terribly horny, and it's all churned up inside me like I'm some sort of sexless washerwoman."

The glimmer of _something more_ hope her jealousy has sprung shrivels like a clawing thing inside his chest. Right. She was still leading with her horny foot first. Maybe _only_ her horny foot. That was still an issue. Even though...sometimes, he _swore_ …

He could ask.

But asking might turn this entire thing wrong again.

He _can't_ let it go wrong again.

Maybe that makes him a coward, but he'll be a coward who still has Lily Evans in his life.

"I think we've both gotten a bit...undertow-ed by all of this," he tries diplomatically, though it feels like a free-fall, like he's missed the last handhold on the tall mountain, like he's losing something. "Which is _why_ I've been trying to keep a rein here, make sure we're not drowning in anything. Though I think we can both concede I've done an utterly shit job of it."

"I'd like to point out that just last night, I threatened to come home and have sex with you out of pure spite," she reminds him. "I mean, not _just_ out of spite, because you're—whatever. The point is I almost _did,_ only Brian stopped me. He had to drag me away from your door, so you're not the only person who did a shit job."

James lets out the poorest replication of a chuckle, forcing it from his mouth with some inner-strength he did not know he possessed.

 _She almost did_. Christ.

He's never wanted to strangle Bloody Brian with his swotty stethoscope more.

"Right," goes the chuckle. "Luckily 'almost' doesn't count."

"It counts to me," she offers, then waves a hand, seems to be trying to swat this all away like a pesky fly swooping through the air. "Look, I'm sorry for getting jealous—especially since you were trying to make a point about why you've been such a headcase and I blew right past it."

"It's fine—"

"I mean, don't get me wrong, I think your logic is nuts," she cuts over him, "but I also can't imagine that it would be nice to live next door if we simultaneously screwed each other _and_ our friendship."

"It would just gut me completely to lose that—you," James reiterates, stumbling back on the familiar grounds of apology with relief. "But it was my fault, yesterday. I'm the one who let it get out of control. I'm the one who just didn't say how he was feeling. And I'm still sorry. _So_ sorry. For making you rant and...and cry on the train. So if you need some time to think about all of it, that's okay. I'll respect that this go. I swear."

"No, it wasn't—you thought that I didn't want to see you, and that wasn't—" She lets out an exasperated sound and lifts her arms, only to let them flop heavily by her sides as if she's making an attempt at something hopeless. "It's just that I think you think that our friendship doesn't matter to me as much as it does to you, and that hurt so much, to think I'd made you feel like—"

"I know—"

"No, you don't know. Please, can I just finish?" Her bright green eyes are fixed imploringly on his. "I need to get this out."

Swallowing down his own imploring, James nods. "Go on."

"Thank you," she says, softly.

That burst of gritty, jagged-edged anger that Sasha seemed to stir in her has vanished, and in its place is softness— _all_ softness—her voice, her eyes, and the hazy, familiar scent of coconut that lingers in the air like the imprint of a pleasant dream.

He wants to touch her. Any small touch. Her hand in his. Cool fingers to her flushed neck. The chastest of kisses to her forehead.

"I just wanted to—to tell you this," she starts. "I want you to know that you're my best friend, which probably means that I'm an awful, fickle person because I've known you all of five minutes, but you _are._ You're my best friend, and I love you, and I never, ever, _ever_ want you to feel like you don't matter."

"Then we're both awful, fickle people," James says hoarsely, a glowing brightness popping in his chest. _Best friend. Love you._ "Because you're my best friend, too. And I never should've been acting like you had to prove that. I don't want _you_ to feel that way. I just…let it all get tangled."

"I know that," she says. "I know what you were trying to protect, okay? It's fine, I don't want to—"

"It's not fine. There's so much I still need to—"

"I told you, I understand, it's not—"

"No, I was an arse, and you were right to be angry and confused, and you haven't let me apologise or explain _any_ of it properly. You're even accepting banana bread that's so below basic acceptability it's practically _not_ banana bread, and that is unacceptable in and of itself—"

He gets no further before she moves in and wraps her arms around his neck, pulls him close to her soft, warm body, fills his every overloaded sense with the scent and the feel and the _reality_ of her.

Her chin tucks neatly against his shoulder, her heart beating solidly against the thrumming mess inside his own chest.

"Idiot," she murmurs, a gently spoken admonishment that sounds more like affection, filtering like silk through his ears and moving straight down to his needy, wanting heart. "Just let me forgive you, for goodness sake, so we can be friends again."

Too good for this world, Lily Evans is. And _certainly_ too good for him. On nine-thousand levels.

But that does not mean James isn't going to scoop her up and keep her close for as long as she'll bloody well let him.

"I want that, too," he says, but her warmth—the damn bloody _goodness_ of her—is like a prickly bush against his conscience. He wraps his arms around her back, holds her tighter against him. "But I want to make sure you—that you understand. I don't want this festering somehow. And I know I haven't got the best hand on this bloody attraction yet, how to keep it sorted from everything else. I don't know what to do with it all yet."

"It's okay," she mumbles into his chest. "I think I do."

He pulls back some—slowly, reluctantly—so he can look at her. "What?"

Lily lifts her head from his chest and tilts her chin up, her eyes locking onto his.

"Kiss me," she tells him.

 _Kiss_ —

James nearly staggers back.

She may as well have struck him over the head with the banana bread plate.

"W-what?" he sputters. "You—that's not funny."

"I'm not joking," she says simply. "I mean it."

James shakes his head, blinking frantically, like someone's just thrown a burst of confetti glitter in his face and the shiny little pieces of spark are clinging for dear life. If his fingers clench a bit too tightly on her arms, she has only herself to blame.

"That is _not_ ," he manages hoarsely, "the solution. It's the _problem_. That's...exposure therapy. At _best._ "

"You're wrong," she says. "And _I_ was wrong, that day in the kitchen, thinking that I could kiss you once and we'd be done with it. That's never going to work because...because I want you." Her eyes are fixed entirely on his. Unblinking. Shameless. _Beautiful._ _"So_ much. And you want me too, I think, and if we keep trying to ignore it, it'll all turn to shit like it almost did yesterday, and become this stupid, angry night of sex that exploded out of nowhere because we were repressing all of this. So we have to be okay with wanting each other, even if that means we kiss sometimes without tearing ourselves up with guilt afterwards. Like a vaccine," she finishes, and almost sounds surprised by the word as it falls from her tongue. "Exactly like a vaccine, so it doesn't spiral out of control."

"A _vaccine_ ," James repeats, like he's on autopilot, a complete automation, and regurgitation is all his control panel is programmed to do. It's all he can manage, this robot-like response, because she's just...and it's what he _wants_ , exactly as she's said. _So_ much. Her unsubtle emphasis on the word shakes him, shatters him, leaves his wiring properly sparked and electrocuted, like a pulsing vibration strumming through him from head to toe.

 _I want you. So much._

Her logic...honestly, he can't make odds or ends of it. But what does he know? Nothing he's attempted to rationalise into fruition thus far has done anything but implode disastrously, so maybe this is better in her hands.

Maybe _she's_ better in his hands.

Or maybe he's making up excuses so that he can kiss her again.

 _Christ_ , how he wants to kiss her again.

She thinks he feels guilty for feeling that way, but it's not guilt. It's never _been_ guilt. It's _always_ been wariness, and feeling like the ground moves beneath him when she walks by, and the harsh reality that he's been stumbling for his footing every time since. He doesn't know what she wants from him, and he's too terrified to ask. He's too certain that any false move will blow up like it had with the shower. Like it had yesterday. There are too many minefields to navigate here. Even if they're minefields of his own making.

Kissing Lily is another minefield.

It's the _biggest_ of minefields.

But James is too drawn in by the tempting heat and the pretty lights of the inevitable explosion to resist.

"Are you sure about this?" he hears himself ask, a last-ditch out, because it's not just him standing so close to the blast he's likely to get charred. She's in the red zone, too. "It went so wrong last time—I mean, not the kissing part. That part was...well, you know. Pluto. But all the parts afterwards...you asked for a line, that day in the kitchen. And this is the _opposite_ of that. Very much the opposite."

"I did ask," she agrees. "I was caught up in the idea that there had to be something inherently wrong in us being attracted to each other, but there's not. Not if we're both adults about it. I'm not going to send you away so that we can have distance because we don't need it. I want to be your friend. I'm _all in_ on being your friend, but I also think you're really fit, and if that's where our relationship is at right now, I'm telling you I'm perfectly happy with that."

James lets out a short, almost amused sigh, dropping his arms so that they're no longer twined around her, but flop back down to his sides instead. Already, he can feel the surge in them, his fingers drumming against his thighs. They have a tense, magnetic pull to touch her again, one that does not seem to care that it ought to be circumspect. It's another layer of undertow, and James knows— _knows_ —he's got no real fight against it. It's too strong. He wants her too much. _So_ much.

He stares down at his recalcitrant limbs...and suddenly gets an idea.

Hastily, he snatches up one of her hands.

"All right," he says, clasping her right hand in his left, first standing them palm to palm, then carefully folding their fingers over until they're tightly interwoven like an intractable zipper. He refuses to become distracted by how soft her skin feels against his, how _right_. Instead, he squeezes and tugs, testing. The clasp holds firm. Satisfied, he turns to the second set and does the same—her left hand into his right; palm to palm; fold and twine; locked.

They are...holding hands.

If hand holding were a hostage situation.

"There," James says.

Lily lifts an eyebrow, eyeing their clasped hands in confusion.

"There, what?" she asks. "What is this?"

"Insurance," James answers briskly, squeezing her fingers with his own. He steps slowly forward, closing the distance between them until their bodies are nearly touching. Their sealed hands fall to either side of their hips. "Don't let go," he orders. Then, ruefully: "Don't let _me_ let go."

"Is this the part where I make some kind of _Titanic_ quip?" she asks faintly, her voice a sudden sombrous tone. Her dark eyes flicker from their locked hands up to his face. This close, he can see the rosy backdrop her suddenly flushed skin has given to her playful dust of freckles. Her hands jerk briefly in his, like they're itching for relief. "'I'll never let go, Jack'?"

"I'll never let go, _James_ ," he corrects, and drops his head.

Then he's kissing her.

Finally— _properly_ —kissing her.

He means to ease into it—a slow settling of mouths, a testing beginning brush. That first time, in the kitchen, everything had been so strong and so fast and so coaxing for more and yet denying it utterly. Here, now, James means to be _deliberate_ , to be thorough, to be so lazily lingering with it that he will be able to keep firm control, the tightest of holds like the tightest of hand clasps.

But things never progress the way he means with Lily. Never have, likely never will. It's an instantaneous thing—a _zap_ , the moment their mouths touch, so much more a flashing lightning storm than the churning typhoon James had envisioned being able to powerfully wade into. His lips hit hers and it's immediately not enough— _never_ enough. Not for either of them. His soft prod of mouths becomes a harder stroke of lips. His chin dips down as she parts her mouth beneath his and the taste of her becomes a spontaneous craving, a _necessary_ craving. Whatever distance between their bodies existed seconds before is plundered in the blink of an eye. As their bodies align, parts matching, moving, squirming to get closer to each other, more of each other, James recognises that whatever control he'd laughably thought to have is gone. Bugger it, anyway. He just needs to kiss her.

It's not long before he feels the jerk of her fingers inside of his—a tug, a pull, as she makes a greedy sort of complaint against his lips and swings their clasped hands upward to try to reel him in closer, touch more, but _no no_ , he won't let her loose. The whole _point_ is not to let either of them loose, to keep some kind of rein on this, not to let his hands get to her because he _knows_ they won't bloody well stop, and _she_ knows it, so he kisses his scold into her mouth, letting their fisted hands settle at either side of her shoulders. She seems to take the rebuke well, sighing against him, lifting up on her toes and fitting her body more snugly against his, content to get her fix that way. He rewards her with a deeper taste—dipping his head, a longer stroke of his lips, then teasingly quicker, playing like he'll pull away, but only to come back. Of _course_ he comes back. Kissing her is a required thing now.

He doesn't know exactly when he backs her up against the wall. It's an unconscious thing, a desperate bid for something to keep either of them afloat, but he hears the quiet _thumps_ as he thrusts their clasped hands against the hard plaster, and knows they've got there. It is, perhaps, a _bit_ too like his dream the night before, except in the dream the taste of her wasn't so heady, the feel of her leg hitching over his thigh didn't make his knees buckle, his mouth plunge more, moving down to her neck for only the briefest of seconds so he can hear her breathy gasps, and then returning just as quickly to swallow them down with his lips again.

Her fingers are squeezing his so hard, it's very nearly painful.

James can't register much of anything except the pleasure. The _joy_ of kissing her. The _thrill_ of it. The _rightness_ , and the _heat_ , and the _magic_ —

She wrenches her mouth from his.

 _"Wait,"_ she forces out, through a hard heave of a breath, as if she has been holding her head under water for a very long time. Her eyes find his and catch them fast, stubbornly refusing to let go. "We should just—just wait."

James is certain his entire body is shaking like a leaf in the wind. Somehow, he finds the ability to nod.

"Yeah," he gets out. "Yeah, good."

He stares back at her, out of breath, his pulse racing, but refuses to apologise. In a morning of apologies, each more valid than the next, this kiss is not something he's even remotely sorry about. And with her fingers still crushingly interlaced with his, it's simply not in him to pretend.

"So," he eventually manages. "That's vaccination."

His words seem to take some time to filter through her ears. She's gazing blankly up at him, her eyes clouded and soft, dark greens swirling into emerald and threaded through with minute strands of gold, reflecting his own longing back at him.

"Think so," she whispers, finally. "My heart is beating so fast."

He brings one of their still clasped hands to the centre of his chest, placing the back of her hand against his own clopping heartbeat.

"You jump, I jump," he jokes.

The laugh this elicits is a weak, breathless wisp of a thing. "I've never been kissed like that before."

"I've never kissed someone like that before," James returns, the bubbling sense of surreal euphoria still twinkling behind his eyelids. That the kiss has rendered her similarly stunned is another heady, powerful rush of adrenaline. He doesn't know what to do with any of these brewing emotions but laugh. "But really, it's a two-person effort. Teamwork, eh?"

"Yeah," she agrees, as her eyes slide from his face and light upon their intertwined hands. Her gaze is hazy and unfocused. "Teamwork."

It strikes him, then, that she seems a little...lost.

Lost, and hollow, and maybe a little frightened, like he's found her wandering alone in the midst of a storm, abandoned in a harsh, enclosing darkness, as if someone or something has unnerved her terribly, like she's seeing something different to what drifts before her eyes.

Her mind is somewhere else, but she clearly doesn't wish for it to stay there.

This can either be a tremendously good thing, or a tremendously _bad_ thing, and though James suddenly is forced to recall that it was _she_ who'd stopped it, who'd pulled away, the rest of him clings to the fact that he cannot possibly have had such a transcending moment on his own. That she _must_ feel...some of this. Be overwhelmed and crashed over and reeling from _that_ , as opposed to...what? Regret? Misgivings? A treatment that went perilously wonky and spread an illness no one saw coming?

He moves their hands slowly— _she still hasn't let go of his hands_ —to lightly nudge at her chin with his knuckle.

"Hey," he says. "All right?"

"Hmm?" She looks up at him again, seems to recapture some of herself. A small smile touches the corners of her sumptuous, well-kissed lips. "I'm fine, I think. Just got dizzy for a moment."

"Endorphins," James says wisely, nodding, like he has any idea what he's talking about. "Body chemicals. Sero...something. It's a thing."

 _Take that, Bloody Brian_ , James thinks in victory. _Sero-something!_

"Serotonin," says Lily listlessly. "You make me feel too much sometimes."

 _Too much?_ James's breathing catches. "That's—"

"Could you give me some air for a second? I think the heat is getting to me." She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, as if some inconsiderate cad flicked water in her face, then unclenches her fingers from around his. "Body heat. Chemicals. Endorphins. It's fine. I'll be fine if I can go and sit down."

"You're probably dehydrated, too," James puts in, and can't believe they're still talking about body wellness when his _heart_ is unwell—fluttering and skipping and everything in him protesting the fact that no part of him is presently touching any part of her. She moves past him, towards the kitchen island stools, and his hand finds the small of her back like it's a north-south magnet. "I ought to have skipped the banana bread and brought you electrolytes. Poor planning, really."

"I suppose it was."

"Are you sure you're alright?" The niggling doubts begin to seep in through the smallest of cracks in his post-kiss bliss. "If—if that was all too much, or—?"

"I'm fine," she says quickly, and pivots around to face him. Despite the presence of his hand on her back, she mustn't have been expecting him to be so close, because she blinks in surprise and takes a small step back, barely missing a collision with a stool. "I mean, it _was_ too much but—it was a nice too much."

"Yeah? Because...you're allowed to rethink this. I don't want—"

"I liked it," she cuts over him. "I'm not made of glass, James, just… very turned on."

He lets out a short little laugh. Choked, really. Her honesty may kill him one day.

"Right," he says. "That...happens."

"Easier to tell when it happens to you," she remarks, her eyes flicking downwards. "I'm flattered, by the way."

"Maybe that's just...a spare banana," he offers lamely, flushing. "I was working with several of them this morning, you know."

"I'm sure," says Lily wryly, with an enquiring quirk of her eyebrow. "Whatever you need to tell yourself."

She swivels ninety degrees to the left on the heel of one stockinged foot, seems to hover for a moment, then moves abruptly toward the sink.

"Electrolytes," she announces.

"What?"

"For the dehydration," she continues, while she removes two glasses from a cupboard above her head and sets them down on the counter. "We snogged for a very long time out there, if you hadn't noticed. Not that I'm complaining."

"We're pretty good at that," he agrees. "Ought to keep us properly vaccinated for a bit, yeah?"

"Oh, definitely. At least, I reckon _I'll_ be good for a while, and you know where I am whenever you feel the need for a top-up."

"Top-up?" he repeats. "That's...you're not a mobile. It shouldn't work that way. We just... _I_ just...whenever?" He shakes his head. "That's crazy."

Lily swings back around to face him, her hands landing squarely on her hips.

"Why is it crazy?" she asks him.

 _Because every time I kiss you, it seems more and more impossible to stop_. "Because...because it's just not _done_ like that. I don't know!"

"Says who?" she retorts. "I'm an adult, you're an adult, we just spent several minutes snogging in the hall and it was better than any sex I've ever had, and yet, _ta-dah—"_ She flips her hands outwards. "We're still best friends. I still adore you and respect you as a person. In fact, I'd really like it if you'd spend the day with me because we have a lot of _Parks and Rec_ to get through and I missed you while I was away."

"I missed you too," he says, because that's the easiest thing to address, the most honest he can be. "But—"

 _"But,_ before you ask, no, this isn't some clever ploy to get into your pants. If I wanted _that,_ I'd just ask."

"I didn't think it was a clever ploy to get anywhere, I just—" He stalls, lifts a hand to his hair and tugs at the strands, the pressured pull some kind of paltry attempt to ground him.

Honestly, why is he fighting this? _Doesn't_ he feel a bit better now? A bit like he might...like _she_ might...that _they_ might be getting somewhere? That with all the sexual tension ebbed ever so slightly, they can concentrate on some kind of larger picture? Or at the very least, fall back into something _normal?_ Sitting tucked up her couch, watching _Parks and Rec_ , deciding whether or not poor Jerry deserves a bit of a break?

Never mind that now he has to contend with statements like _better than any sex I've ever had_.

He can manage that rationally.

Somehow.

"I suppose…" He sighs. Gives in. Of _course_ he's going to give in. When the prospect of touching her is on the table, did he _ever_ stand a true chance of objection? "Yeah. We're adults. We can...top-up." He cringes. "No, not top-up. Something else. But...maybe you're right."

"Of course I am. I'm right about most things," she says lightly.

Apparently unaffected by the raucous emotions that are currently battling one another for dominance in James's chest, Lily walks over to the fridge, where she pulls open the door and appears to carefully examine its contents.

"Anyway," she blithely continues, "it's not like it's a requirement, but if you ever feel a pressing need to kiss me, you can kiss me. It won't be a big problem." She reaches into the fridge and takes out a bottle of lemonade before nudging it shut with her elbow. "We can do the hand thing again. I liked that. Made me feel irresistible."

"We never did get to that long list of how difficult you are to resist," James murmurs, watching her carefully. "Actions speak louder than words and all."

Lily smiles brightly at him as she sets the bottle down next to the glasses.

 _"You,"_ she says, "are an insanely handsome man and a wonderful kisser and an even better friend."

The needy, wanting thing inside his chest flutters and beams all the more, hardly believing they've somehow gotten to this point, the point of being okay— _better_ than okay, even, in a strange sort of _Twilight Zone_ maneuver that he is afraid to even think too much on, lest he jinx it. Lily has forgiven him. She's still his friend. His _best_ friend. He continues to be a tremendous wreck of a man...but he is a _wonderful kisser,_ and _an even better friend_ , and somehow he's going to find a way to meld the two without imploding either of their lives into disastrous confetti.

"I get that a lot, in precisely that order of importance," he says, then claps his hands together. "So. _Parks and Rec_ , then?"

"Yes please. And banana bread. It smells pretty good and I haven't had breakfast," she says, with an affirming nod. "You don't mind watching in my room, do you? Kingsley gave me his old telly and it's smaller than Mary's, but I've got a bunch of place cards to make today and they're all spread out on my bed."

"Place cards? Are you throwing a party?"

"No, you silly sod, for my sister's wedding. Didn't I tell you about the change of plans?" She frowns slightly. "Or did I just _plan_ to ask you to come with me, and this in fact is now the first time you're hearing about it?"

James's eyebrows lift. His heart, skittering along, misses a beat. "You want me to go to your sister's wedding with you?"

"Well, originally I couldn't bring a date, but our cousin Dotty broke her leg and Petunia thinks casts are unseemly," she explains, with an accompanying eyeroll, "so I got roped in as a replacement bridesmaid. It's annoying as arse, but I get a plus one, so naturally…" She gestures towards him. "If you don't mind meeting my sister, that is. And my parents, though they're significantly _less_ of a problem."

 _Naturally_ , James thinks, and not for the first time this morning, his brain pops and prickles and his chest does a giddy flip-flop.

She wants him as her date.

 _Naturally_ wants him as her date.

And has decided snogging him is some kind of delightful medical treatment.

It's not...well, it's not precisely _confirmation_ of anything, but for the first time in days—weeks, maybe—James feels…

Hopeful.

Maybe, eventually, she might…

Maybe this _is_ the start of…

Something.

"Yes," he says immediately, succinctly, with zero detail provided. "Of course I want to meet your family. And I am an _amazing_ date. I have witty commentary for everything. And I look extra fit in a tux, because my mum buys custom ones without telling you. They just turn up in your closet. Ninja formal wear delivery."

"I still have to meet your mum," she reminds him. "When's that happening?"

 _His_ mum, Euphemia Potter, who has never discerned a secret any later than moments after James decided to keep it, and would spot Lily from six dozen paces away and proclaim—loudly—"Yes, that's the one my son is half in love with!"

James can hear his mum's smug laughter already.

No thank you.

"She's...she travels a lot," he dithers, waving a hand. "You'll meet her as soon as she recalls her children and stumbles her way over here."

"Really? I thought you said she was overly involved and impossibly nosy, and in your flat so often that she sometimes feels like furniture?"

"Did I say that?" He scratches his head and shoots for an innocuous expression. "You know how I exaggerate."

"Right," says Lily slowly, with a slight frown creasing her brow. She's clearly smelling a rat in the kitchen. "Well, can I at least meet your friend Remus soon? You talk about him like he's some sort of magical Dickensian professor and I want to make sure that he's real."

 _"Yes."_ James immediately jumps on this. "You can meet Remus. _Definitely_ can meet Remus. I swear, he's real. I mean—well, he's off at some swotty tutors conference right now, so maybe not _immediately_...and also, he _may_ have asked for a bit of space after I compared our friendship to a sexually transmitted disease. It was meant to be a compliment. I'd just got sacked from the Fortnite team. It's been a very trying week for me, honestly."

"Same, honestly," she agrees, and picks up the glasses, and the bottle, which she balances against her chest. "But now it's all sorted out and we're bestie mates again, come along to bed, please." She turns on her heel and practically glides toward the open kitchen door. "Just keep those hands to yourself."

James lifts said hands in the air, fingers splayed, all innocence. "To myself."

* * *

"You didn't fuck him, did you?"

Lily looks up from the rectangle of stiff, gold scalloped card over which she has been labouring with a calligraphy pen for the past couple of minutes. She's had one earbud in for the duration of half of a playlist, and been intensely focused on the task at hand, so she hadn't heard Mary return to the flat.

Her friend is lucky that her interruption didn't make Lily jump and spoil the card. Petunia has exacting standards and is bound to take sly jabs at her work, despite tasking Lily with the cards in the first place _because_ she's so good at calligraphy. Her sister will criticise them aloud and love them in secret. That's just the way she functions. Lily hardly possesses the energy to bring herself to care.

She pulls her earbud out of her ear and drops Sia's gentle crooning into her lap before she shuts down Spotify on her phone. Her stretched-out legs are beginning to cramp a little, but the only way to work from her bed is to sit with a breakfast tray perched above her thighs, and she hasn't wanted to leave her bed for...reasons.

"That's crass," she tells Mary.

"Can you answer the question?"

"Does it look like we did that?"

"No," says Mary derisively, gesturing to the soundly sleeping man on Lily's bed. "This is a _totally_ normal setup."

Lily's gaze alights upon James, who hasn't moved once since she wriggled gently out of his grip.

He's absolutely darling when he sleeps—long, dark lashes brushing his cheekbones, glasses woefully askew, messy strands of black hair sweeping low across his forehead. His full, soft lips—Lily is officially _obsessed_ with his lips, hasn't she mentioned?—are ever so slightly parted, and he breathes so deeply that it rumbles in the centre of his chest. It's a low, reassuring sound, a reverberation which had caressed her skin through the fabric of her shirt when she woke up not an hour ago, wrapped up in an arm that was not carelessly slung across her torso, but nicely, neatly tucked around her waist with clear deliberation.

The muscles in her face start tugging on her sleeve and pleading most obnoxiously _—smile, smile, smile, you goofy, infatuated twit—_ but she's a pretty decent actress, so she callously ignores them.

"He dozed off," she says simply.

"Shame. I was hoping he'd been murdered."

"We were watching _Parks and Rec_ and I fell asleep first," Lily expounds, finishing the y in _Marley_ with a flourish before she sets her pen down next to the card. "He was like this when I woke up."

She wonders if he watched her sleep before drifting off himself.

She really hopes he did.

Mary makes a noise of utter disgust in the back of her throat, regarding James's back as if she's spied a fat slug crawling along his spine. "Wake him up, then."

"No."

"Why not?"

"He didn't sleep much last night. Needs the rest."

"Yeah, because you were banging on your wall like a psycho, remember?" Mary points out. She's folded her arms across her chest, the defensive stance she likes to take when she is preparing herself to dig her heels in about something. "Because you _fought_ with him, because he's a jealous little _shit,_ because he—"

"Keep your voice down, please."

Mary drops her arms by her sides and seems to grow a couple of inches in height, sucking in her cheeks as she takes a breath, nostrils flaring, her bright blue eyes expanding to the size of two-pound coins. Her hands ball into fists and release again, their slender fingers twitching with blatant purpose.

She looks as if she'd very much like to start shouting, or throwing things, or smashing James in the face with a crowbar.

"How can you—" she whispers, then stops, releasing the breath she'd drawn in deeply. Her voice tightens; irritation has taken a vice grip on her throat and reduced it to an angry hiss. "How can you just forgive him after everything he said last night? After everything he did in the _shower,_ Lily? Jesus fucking Christ!"

"Because."

"Because what?"

"Because," Lily quietly repeats, and her gaze falls once again on the dozing man beside her. "Because he's in love with me, I think."

That's a very strange thing to say aloud.

And such an _arrogant_ theory to foster, too—this idea that she alone could drive a man to such a heightened level of bonkers—and without confirmation from the lion's mouth itself, speculative at best. The evidence is all circumstantial. She's got no definitive proof at all.

So it's even stranger still that she believes it.

Or...half-believes it, at least.

There's context, and that context is vital.

Context. Brian had mentioned that word at dinner with no particular stress on its importance, but it has been bouncing around in her head since she awoke that morning and found herself floating in a strange, indelible calm she hadn't anticipated. Possibly while she was tossing and turning in sleep. Context. He might be in love with her. That.

It's nothing but a lens to which to view this situation, really. A framework. A bowl in which she can toss all these components and make some attempt at swirling them together. She can't claim to understand James's logic, can't help but suspect there's more to be revealed that one failed relationship with a different, former, neighbour, but James clearly can't be pushed, would rather let the truth come out in little dribs and drabs, and Lily can only work with what she's given.

"You make me _do_ insane things," James had told her, and they were none of them sane in love, according to a solemn, sensible, highly educated surgeon.

She'd made sense of it all, somehow, in the midst of a weighty slumber, then James had turned up on her doorstep to offer her his profuse, most heartfelt apologies, so torn-up and shattered by the idea of losing her in any sense, and then he'd said things— _telling_ things—and then they'd…

There's context.

"He's in—" Mary's chin jerks upwards. _"What?!"_

James stirs slightly at the sound of her voice, a low, garbled, nonsense sound of disturbance rising from his chest, shuffling his body closer to Lily's. Instinct tells her to lay a reassuring hand upon his shoulder, so she does, shushing Mary in the process.

Miraculously, the gesture seems to work, and James settles back into the groove of his peaceful sleep at once, evidently none the wiser as to the mostly-whispered conversation that's pinging back and forth above his head.

Lily watches him for another handful of seconds, just to be sure, before deeming herself satisfied.

"It's a hypothesis," she says airily.

Mary's features contort. "A hypoth—"

"There was context."

"Context?"

"Look, it's fine. I have a theory and I'm looking into it," Lily replies, keeping her tone even. "No doubt I'll happily present my findings at a later date, but right now—"

"Forget your findings,what I want to know is how you came up with this _hypothesis_ in the first place."

"I'll explain it all later, when he's not lying right next to me and liable to wake up at any minute," says Lily, and sweeps a hand through the air, gesturing toward the door. "So can you please excuse us?"

Mary rolls her eyes so hard that she's in danger of subjecting her lacrimal bone to a hairline fracture, but she does as she's asked and leaves, accompanied by a plethora of huffing, grumbling, and pointed stomping of the feet.

She has, at least, the decency to shut the door behind her.

Lily lifts the breakfast tray from her lap and leans over the edge of her bed to set it down on the floor. She deposits her phone and her earbuds on her bedside table before she shuffles around to face James, returning to her earlier, prone position, one hand tucked beneath her pillow.

Only a couple inches of space and crumpled duvet is sitting between their faces, their chests, her feet and his calves. He's so much taller than her that they can only ever be at eye level when they're both lying side-by-side.

She wants to let him stay, entwined with her all night, but she can't.

That's too much by far, when her entire plan hinges on giving him just enough. Lily has done her part already, declared herself receptive to his wants and desires, so super cool and light and casual! Look at her, so nicely recovered! No bumps and bruises on her heart. James can kiss her, hold her, touch whatever parts of her he wants to, share her lonely bed all night, and she'll raise not one objection, but he's going to have to ask. She can't. Won't. She has to let him _feel,_ at least, that he has some sort of control over this.

She'll touch him, though. Kiss his cheek, maybe. Flirt with him and tell him that he's handsome. She'll be sweet and romantic and breezily neglect to set a single boundary, and gently nudge him into his own private conclusion. No pressure. No tense negotiations. That's all he seems to need from her right now.

James can't be rushed, clearly. She can't push him or force him or demand an explanation that he's not ready to give. Whatever crazed parade he's throwing in his head, theories he's floating, confetti he's attempting to bat out of his eyes, he needs to figure it all out by himself. Needs to be _ready,_ not strong-armed into agreement. She can wait—she's got a lot of patience—and it will work, because it has to, because she's shot herself in the foot if she turns out to be wrong.

But she's not wrong. She can _feel_ it.

She'll happily subject him to a teasing when all of this is over. Look at her, so clever, knowing all of his secrets before he knew them for himself.

He kisses her like his need for her is electrifying his skin and nerves and bones, gazes at her like he's trying his hardest to memorise her every freckle. He speaks to her like he's in love with her—speaks to her like she _invented_ the concept of love in the first place, like he was so naïve and untouched by it, fresh and dewy and baby-soft new until she came along and showed him what it meant. _I don't want to lose you for anything else. Jealous. I couldn't stand it if that happened with you. Jealous. I would never want you to think you were like anyone else. Jealous. Jealous. It would just gut me completely to lose that—you. Jealous. Jealous. You're your own bloody bestseller, Lily Evans. Jealous._

He'd told that little white lie about his mother, who by his own admission can read his mind like an open recipe book. Wouldn't his mother _know,_ if James was secretly in love, tuned into him as she is? And in knowing, would she be content to keep it secret, or would she blurt it out at once, brandishing her matchmaking oar, intent upon setting ripples in the pond that he's been working so hard to keep still?

And does Lily not feel a similar symbiosis? Their _click?_ Their mutual ease? Is it not magic—the way they are with one another, the way they can talk and talk and never feel uncomfortable, the way they can kiss each other senseless and bounce right back into their friendship, breathless and ravaged and scalded with desire for each other, but ultimately unscathed?

Lily had thought she knew that recipe, had believed herself well-versed in any and all ingredients that she could mix together to make James Potter happy, learned it and studied it and sealed it up behind her ribs, until it was intrinsic. Second-nature. As easy to recite as the alphabet or two-times tables.

To make James Potter happy, one needs: a well-filled cup of good, strong coffee, a generous cuddle from an ornery ginger cat, a dash of cheesy eighties pop and splash of his aunt's best chicken avgolemono. Add a slice of Sam's best pepperoni and mushroom. Toss in some movies with over-the-top explosions. Drive though the city with a window slightly cracked. Don't _dare_ neglect that solitary drop of his best mate's woeful shower-singing—sour to the taste and unpleasant by itself, but crucial, _utterly_ crucial, to his contentment day-to-day.

If there ever was anything missing from this compound, if ever the recipe called for something vital that no one had ever thought to scribble down, Lily would not have been so vain as to assume that she was it.

But maybe...maybe she's _it._

Maybe _that's_ the context she's been missing all this time.

And maybe, when she examines their friendship through the lens of _he's in love with me, I think,_ it becomes so much easier to make sense of all the rest.

Even if, perhaps, he hasn't fully realised it himself.

"James?" she whispers, and gently nudges his arm.

This seems to alert him to her presence, though not enough that he is stirred awake. With a muffled mumble of a word she can't discern, his arm lifts up and curls around her, his fingers settling easily against the curve of her backside.

That settles it. He's definitely not faking sleep.

Not that she thought he was.

Lily bites back a laugh at the thought of how embarrassed he'll be if he wakes with his hand still sitting there, and forgoes the kiss she's desperate to give him in favour of placing her hand on the small of his back, snugly nestled beneath his t-shirt. His skin is a lovely, comforting kind of warm—a fallen star she caught in the palm of her outstretched hand.

She shakes him a little, setting them both to rocking slightly back and forth. "James, sweetheart? You need to wake up."

His mouth forms a noise rather more than a word, a humming sort of acknowledging grunt at her sweetly put request, one that he accompanies—eyes still firmly closed, shifting a bit, but only closer to her—with an almost inadvertent lift of his hand. His palm pets her head—a stroke of _hm, yes, noted, thank you, good night_ —and then he seems much content to continue to doze.

"Oi," she gently admonishes, and sways them a little harder. "Who gave you permission to set up camp for the night?"

"Hmm?" he murmurs, but it's with a bit more awareness, a firmer grasp on the prodding. A second or two more and one squinted eye shutters reluctantly open and then closes again. The other sluggishly does the same. "Ugh," he complains, blinking. Then his gaze seems to register her, centimeters in front of him.

He freezes.

She gazes unblinkingly back at him, which is all she really needs to do. She's got pretty eyes, or so she's heard it told, that do things to susceptible hearts.

"Hi," he eventually croaks.

"Hi," she echoes, and smiles at him. "You're impossibly cute when you've just woken up."

His sleep-flushed skin seems to burn a slightly brighter hue, or perhaps that's just wishful thinking. In any case, he keeps warm brown eyes flickering around, like he isn't certain where to look or how to process where he is.

Slowly, he begins to shift upward.

"Didn't mean to fall asleep," he says, moving his glasses into place, then lifts his hand to the back of his neck, arching it with a wince and a telling crack. "You did, and then I was going to leave, but...well, best laid plans, I s'pose. Sorry."

She shifts up to her bottom and stretches, her arms knocking gently against the headboard, flattening her legs along the mattress. Though she has been awake for the better part of an hour, the muscles in her legs and thighs are stiff from working on those confounded cards.

"Don't apologise, it was nice," she tells him. "Cosy. Been ages since I shared a bed with someone."

"Next time, my bed," he says with a yawn. "Yours really is quite shit. We need to get you a mattress topper or something."

Then he freezes again, seems to realise what he's said. _Next time, my bed_. His eyes immediately find hers, and she can see the scroll of thoughts as clear as day. _Shit. Should I have said that? Am I allowed to say that?_

Her boundary games have caught him already.

But it's all fine. He's safe. They're progressing at his speed now.

"If only I could afford one," she sighs dramatically, "but I paid for myself last night and the restaurant Mary sent me to was inconsiderately expensive."

"A blind date at an expensive restaurant?" He blinks some more, shakes his head. "You ought to have let the bloody surgeon pay. I bet you anything he offered and you refused. Or _Mary_ should have paid, mastermind that she is."

"He did offer. I did refuse," she admits, "but he alsotried to advise me against all those bloody cocktails and I didn't bother listening, and it would have been unspeakably rude to let him pay for my drinks."

"Even so—"

"And as for Mary, she was clearly hoping that I'd let him pay for everything and thank him for his kindness by letting him spend the night. Which I did, I guess, but he slept on the couch," she adds, careful to clarify that point quickly. "And I can't ask her to spot me for money. She's _still_ covering more than her fair share of the bills so I can carry on living here."

"And likely doing it happily," James returns, but there's a weighted sort of pause as he shifts until they're sitting properly side by side again. Their legs nearly touch, and he's shooting her a tentative look out of the corner of his eye. "I didn't know things were still that tight," he broaches slowly.

"They're _always_ that tight," she replies. "The money I'll get for this Claire Foy thing will just about pay Mary back and cover my rent for another month, but the fact remains that I'm not a member of the wage bracket that can comfortably afford to live in this building. I never should have moved in," she finishes flatly, drawing her knees up to her chest. "And—"

"Don't say that." James's hand covers hers. "You absolutely should have moved in."

"No, I know, I met you and that's been everything, but it was a really irresponsible decision and—"

"It's not irresponsible to get out of a shit living situation and find somewhere safer to land," James objects firmly, frowning at her. "You did what you had to do. There's no cost when compared to that. Your friends are grateful for it. Mary. _Me."_

Lily turns her hand beneath his so that their palms touch, and laces their fingers together.

"Is that allowed?" she asks him, tilting her chin to catch his gaze.

James squeezes her hand in return. "This bit was always allowed."

She smiles softly up at him, and nuzzles her cheek against his shoulder.

"I know I could model again, if I needed to," she continues, though the mere idea of it feels exhausting. "It pays a lot more than what I'm doing and that should matter more than my _principles,_ or whatever. I wouldn't blame Mary if she eventually gets pissed at my repeated refusals, honestly. She's done enough for me without paying my way through life."

"You deserve to be able to do what you want," James says, his head dropping atop hers. "I don't think Mary will wipe her hands of you that easily, but if she...if she ever _does_ get to that point, and it's a matter of your _principles_ …" He pauses, head shifting slightly. "Lily, you know I would always—I mean, anything you really needed—"

She pulls away from him at once—though not his hand, she squeezes his hand harder—to fix him with a stern look.

"No," she says, firmly. "I'd rather take another modelling job than ask you for money. That's never going to happen."

"You're not asking," James objects, "I'm offering. I just want you to be happy. And money...it makes me sound like an arse, but it's not an issue for me. You know it isn't. And that's so little compared to...to you...or—" He stops, maybe sees the stubborn, unmovable look on her face. He sighs. "Just...as back up. Just in case."

She shakes her head at him, her lips stretched in a rueful smile.

"It doesn't work like that with us." _Because I'm probably in love with you._ "You said you'd rather do what was right than what was good and easy, and that applies here, too." _No, I'm definitely in love with you._ "It might put your mind at ease, but I'd feel shit. I'd feel like things were all...imbalanced. Like I'd used you, or something." _I am so in love with you, and I think you might love me._ "I don't want that to be a factor in my relationship with you."

He looks like he may want to argue more on it—gets a frowning sort of pout, a deep wrinkle right in the middle of his dark brows—but a few seconds of brewing argument seems as far as he gets before conceding. His shoulders slump in defeat.

"Fine," he mutters. "I don't want you to feel like shit. Even if I still think imbalances shouldn't count in friendship. But I'm not just going to let you...end up in a cardboard box or something."

"I don't think it'll come to _that,"_ she assures him, with a wispy accompanying laugh. "If all else fails, I can move back in with my parents for a while. Leicester's okay, and I could probably get a job at—"

"Leicester?" James cries the word in outrage, shaking his head furiously. "That's...that's so far! And you've just really started to like the girls at the restaurant! And...Algernon would be so cross. He _hates_ having to drive anywhere."

"It's a two hour drive!" she protests. "And let's not pretend that the _girls_ are a real consideration here. You'd never approve of my living anywhere besides the flat right next door. Who'd talk Algernon out of one of his vengeful fits or sweet-talk Sam into delivering your dinner?"

"Who'd give me knocks goodnight?" James adds, glancing quickly at her. "Who'd make sure I don't skip breakfast, or help overrule Sirius when he says he'll only watch Russian films, or spend all night helping me reorganise a community charity function because they've just switched locations on us and my sorry lot of kids need funds for proper shin guards to keep their legs safe during matches?" He nudges his shoulder into hers. "You can't move to _Leicester_ , Lily."

 _Of course I won't. I'm in love with you,_ flits impatiently on the end of her tongue, but she swallows it back and settles on brushing his forefinger with her thumb.

"If I promise not to move to Leicester, will you at least be okay with me moving elsewhere in London once my lease ends?" she asks him, and wonders if her pulse is thrumming so hard that he'll be able to feel it through their conjoined hands. "Somewhere more affordable?"

"If worst comes to worst," he dissembles, "we can always buy you a tent and hitch it up on the rooftop. Perfect, affordable alternative."

"The _rooftop?"_

"It's a lovely place to squat beneath the stars. No one ever goes up there."

"I can't believe you'd squirrel me away on the roof like some sort of secret shame when you have that massive bed all to yourself," she scolds him, laughing. "How would I keep from freezing to death in the winter?"

"Very thick, woolen socks," James replies, grinning. "And one of those sherpa-lined blankets. Nice and cosy. A foolproof plan." He nudges her shoulder again. "Or you could always take my bed. If vaccinations and imbalances allow, of course."

"Of course," she agrees, "and anyway, my lease doesn't end for another nine months, and plenty could have changed by then. I might have won the lottery. I might be a West End success." She pauses for a moment, then drops her head to his shoulder once more. "We might not need a vaccine."

"Hm," he hums noncommittally. "Just...can you at least promise that if things ever _are_ reaching Leicester territory, we'll at least talk about it first? Before anyone's catching a train or hitching a tent?"

"I was thinking that I'd run off in the dead of night and never say goodbye," she says, and smiles to herself, allowing her eyelids to close. "But your way sounds better. I promise I'll let you know."

She feels his cheek brush over her hair, then the almost ghostly press of his lips to the crown of her head.

"I'd go to Leicester, you know," he says. "Every day. But an alternative just seems a bit cleaner."

"Every day?" She laughs lightly, moves away from his shoulder, lifts her eyes to his. They're as close as they were when he'd kissed her earlier. "Why would you need to see me every day?"

He blinks at the question—startled, though if by her inquiry, or at the sudden realisation that he's said something a bit more telling than he meant to or noticed, Lily can't be sure. Either way, he opens his mouth, then closes it. Does it again.

"I—"

A prim and loud procession of knocks sounds on Lily's bedroom door, rescuing James from the necessity of providing her with an answer to her question.

"I'm ordering Chinese for dinner." Mary's knowing voice floats through the door. She sounds unduly smug, evidently of the opinion that she's going to keep James from some long coveted treat, and the irony of the situation—Mary Macdonald, of all people, sparing James from an awkward moment—is so delicious that Lily can hardly bring herself to be annoyed by the interruption. "Do you two want anything? Potter will pay if he knows what's good for him."

"I do know what's good for me!" James immediately calls through the door, looking relieved. "See?" he says, turning to Lily. "There's a woman who doesn't mind taking my money."

"She also wouldn't mind watching you drown, but it'd make me cry for weeks, so consider your argument countered," Lily points out. "Still, you should probably sort things out with her."

"Good points," James says, and swivels to spring from the bed with an alarming level of agility considering all of ten minutes ago, he'd been passed out contently with his arms tangled around her. "I know how to put on a good grovel. Or, at the very least, know where she keeps all the sharp knives, which will be carefully avoided until I've successfully bought back her affection." He reaches the door, glances over his shoulder at Lily. "What's your mood? Orange chicken? Extra spring rolls?"

"How about you pick my dinner?" she offers, smiling up at him. "I have absolute faith in you."

"Challenge accepted," he says, grinning. Then he throws open the door, takes a step out, and calls, "I'm exiting the bedroom! Don't shoot! Why, Mary, don't you look _stunning_ —ah, yes, you too, Edgar—"

"Arse," she murmurs fondly under her breath, watching him bounce from the room with all his renewed energy, and smiles to herself before she scrambles to her feet and follows him out the door.

Arse. Liar. Shower-adjacent pervert.

She loves him.

She _loves_ him.

She does.


End file.
